Jerusalem, January 23, 2008 – The single most important factor in the public’s confidence in reports of commissions of inquiry is the criticism that those reports contain and not necessarily the formal composition of the commissions, say researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel College of Management.

This conclusion was reached on the basis of two public opinion surveys conducted by Dr. Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan, of the Hebrew University’s Department of Political Science and  Federmann School of Public Policy and Government, and Dr. Yifat Holzman-Gazit of the Law School at the College of Management.

Their surveys were undertaken in September 2006 with the establishment of the Winograd Commission of Inquiry on the Second Lebanon War and then again after the commission’s interim report published in May 2007.  (The commission’s final report is due at the end of this month.) The first survey covered 1001 respondents and the second 500 from those who were polled the first time.

The researchers concluded on the basis of the responses to the two surveys that it is not the legal stature of the commission (defined mostly by the method of tribunal members' appointment) that determines the public’s trust in the inquiry body’s conclusions, but rather the content of the commission’s report. The more critical the report that is issued, the more it is likely to be seen as reliable and believable, the researchers found. 

Dr. Sultzeanu-Kenan said the survey here bore out the results of his earlier research in Britain “There too it was found that the public’s trust in commissions of inquiry reports was conditional upon the commissions’ conclusions being compatible with those reached by the public,” he said. In other words, the public generally expects such commissions to issue reports critical of the subject and/or personages under inquiry.

In the survey here concerning the Winograd Commission, the public was shown to be positively influenced by the fact that a senior judicial figure headed the commission, but was less interested in whether the commission was appointed by the president of the Supreme Court (as in the case of a national commission of inquiry) or by the government, as is the case with Winograd.

This finding, say the researchers, refutes the contention of those who challenged in a Supreme Court case the way in which the Winograd Commission was appointed by arguing that the public would have confidence only in a national commission of inquiry.

“In Israel, as well as in other places in the world, the political dynamic, following a crisis, is characterized by public pressure to establish a commission of inquiry. However, despite the fact that in this case (the Winograd Commission) a government appointed rather than court-appointed commission was appointed, there is no support to the claim that this had any influence on the public’s faith in the commission’s report,” conclude the researchers.

 For further information: Jerry Barach, Dept. of Media Relations, the Hebrew University,

Tel: 02-588-2904.  Orit Sulitzeanu, Hebrew University spokesperson, Tel: 054-8820016.