Closed Criminal Case, Lasting Police Record: How to Change the Closure Ground

Closed does not necessarily mean erased

The Criminal Procedure Law [Consolidated Version], 1982 distinguishes between the decision not to prosecute and the reason for that decision. According to the State Attorney’s Office, files closed for insufficient evidence or lack of public interest do not appear in the suspect’s criminal record, but information about them remains in the police’s internal database and may be disclosed only to a limited group of authorized bodies. By contrast, section 62(b) provides that a file closed for absence of guilt is deleted from police records. This distinction can matter in sensitive areas: police procedures concerning firearms licensing and police recruitment expressly permit consideration of certain closed files, while treating absence-of-guilt files differently.

Absence of guilt is not the same as insufficient evidence

Insufficient evidence means that the material does not support a reasonable prospect of conviction, but some evidentiary basis for suspicion remains. Absence of criminal guilt applies when the collected material does not establish a reasonable suspicion that the suspect committed the offence. Lack of public interest is different again: evidence may exist, but the circumstances do not justify pursuing criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court explained in HCJ 6213/14 that closure for insufficient evidence must not be read as a finding that the suspect did not commit the offence; the classification concerns the evidentiary picture, not a declaration following a trial.

The request goes back to the body that closed the file

Under section 62(b) of the Criminal Procedure Law, a suspect may submit a reasoned request to change the closure ground. The request is handled by the authority that closed the file—usually the relevant police unit or District Attorney’s Office—and is passed to the official supervising the person who made the closure decision. Sending every request directly to the State Appeals Unit is a common procedural mistake: that unit states that it does not initially process requests to change closure grounds. The request should confront the evidence on which the remaining suspicion rests, rather than arguing only that no indictment was filed.

What the decision-maker actually examines

The question is whether a reasonable evidentiary basis for suspicion remains after reviewing the entire investigation file. Conflicting accounts, supporting witnesses, inconsistencies, documents and findings from related proceedings may all affect that assessment; a simple denial does not automatically justify absence of guilt. In HCJ 6213/14, contradictory witness and police accounts were enough to leave the insufficient-evidence classification in place, even though there was not enough evidence to prosecute. Applicants therefore weaken their case when they rely on reputational harm alone, make broad attacks on the complainant or ignore evidence that appears unfavorable. The Supreme Court also stressed that a refusal should be reasoned and that a merely laconic response may be inadequate where the classification significantly affects a person’s dignity, reputation or livelihood.

If the request is refused

The government’s online appeals service covers appeals by suspects against refusals to change an investigation file’s closure ground. The route depends on which authority closed the file; the State Appeals Unit handles such appeals only for files closed by a District Attorney’s Office or the Department for Internal Police Investigations. Judicial review by the High Court of Justice is possible in principle, but it is not a fresh evidentiary hearing. HCJ 4703/20 emphasized that intervention in prosecutorial decisions—especially the classification of a closure ground—is reserved for rare cases involving extreme unreasonableness or another serious defect. A complainant is in a different position: section 64 provides a right to appeal the original closure, but HCJ 4703/20 held that the law does not grant a complainant a separate appeal against a later decision changing the suspect’s closure ground.

FAQ

Sources

• Government information on appeals and criminal-file closure grounds
• Online service for appealing a refusal to change a closure ground
• Israel Police procedure on reasons for closing criminal files
• Supreme Court judgment in HCJ 6213/14
• Supreme Court judgment in HCJ 4703/20

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