Micha Lindenstrauss ( he, מיכה לינדנשטראוס) (28 June 1937 – 2 May 2019) was an Israeli judge and the State Comptroller between 2005 and 2012.

Biography

Micha Lindenstrauss was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. His family

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

when he was two years old, on the eve of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was married and a father to three daughters, one of whom is a judge. His cousin

Joram Lindenstrauss Joram Lindenstrauss ( he, יורם לינדנשטראוס) (October 28, 1936 – April 29, 2012) was an Israeli mathematician working in functional analysis. He was a professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics. Biograp ...

was an Israeli mathematician and one of his distant relatives, the Israeli mathematician

Elon Lindenstrauss Elon Lindenstrauss ( he, אילון לינדנשטראוס, born August 1, 1970) is an Israeli mathematician, and a winner of the 2010 Fields Medal. Since 2004, he has been a professor at Princeton University. In 2009, he was appointed to Profess ...

is a Fields Medalist.

Judicial career

In the Israel Defense Forces, he served as a military prosecutor, and later, as a judge in a

military tribunal Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bod ...

. In 1972, he became a

Traffic Court Traffic court is a specialized judicial process for handling traffic ticket cases. In the United States, people who are given a citation by a police officer can plead guilty and pay the indicated fine directly to the court house, by mail, or on t ...

judge, and then a Lower District Court judge in

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

. In 1999, he was appointed president of the Haifa District Court. Later, he became chair of the Judges Delegation of Israel. Lindenstrauss's name reached headlines when he acquitted the suspects in the notorious gang rape of a fourteen-year-old girl in kibbutz Shimrat, a decision overturned by the Supreme Court. As chair of the Judges Delegation, he became known for his stern opposition to the abolition of the Judges Feedback by the Lawyers Guild of Israel, and helped lead the judges boycott against the Guild incident. Upon the retirement of State Comptroller, Eliezer Goldberg, Lindenstrauss was the sole contender for the position. He was voted as State Comptroller by the

Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...

(with 59 voting for, 29 against), a position he assumed in July 2005. In May 2006, Lindenstrauss became involved in a highly publicized dispute with Public Service Commissioner, Shmuel Hollander, who maintained Lindenstrauss's annual Comptroller report was unfairly and personally biased toward him, resulting in legal action. In April 2011 Lindenstrauss announced an investigation into Benjamin Netanyahu's travel at the expense of private businessmen, mainly American Jews.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindenstrauss, Micha 1937 births 2019 deaths Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law alumni 20th-century Israeli judges State Comptrollers of Israel 20th-century Israeli civil servants 21st-century Israeli civil servants 21st-century Israeli judges