Background
Yosef Ayoubi, who had been denied a license to practice medicine in Israel, submitted a written inquiry to the Director General of the Ministry of Health on November 3, 2024 seeking reconsideration of that denial. When the Ministry did not respond within what he considered the legally allotted six-month period, Ayoubi filed a formal complaint with the Public Complaints Commissioner at the State Comptroller’s Office. On September 17, 2025, the Commissioner closed the complaint on the grounds that the Ministry of Health had in fact provided a substantive response to Ayoubi on June 8, 2025.
Ayoubi disputed that account. He contended that the date cited by the Commissioner — June 8, 2025 — was incorrect, pointing out that the response letter he actually received from the Ministry bore the date September 17, 2025, not June 8. He produced two documents purportedly from the Ministry: one unsigned, dated June 8, 2025, and one signed, dated September 17, 2025. On this basis he alleged that the Commissioner had engaged in deliberate “forgery” and deception, backdating the Ministry’s response to make it appear timely and thereby shielding the Ministry from accountability for its prolonged silence.
Ayoubi petitioned the High Court of Justice for a conditional order directing the State Comptroller to show cause why the Commissioner’s September 17, 2025 decision should not be annulled, why the complaint investigation should not be reopened, and why he should not receive his requested relief — namely, a medical license. The petitioner represented himself.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Yechiel Kasher, writing for a three-judge panel, dismissed the petition at the threshold on three independent grounds. First, the petitioner failed to exhaust administrative remedies. Although Ayoubi submitted a preliminary letter to the Comptroller’s office on September 28, 2025, that letter made no mention of the alleged date discrepancy or any claim of forgery. Because the specific grievances raised in the petition were never presented to the respondent for a preliminary response, the exhaustion requirement was not satisfied, a requirement the Court held carries particular weight where, as here, the allegations are unusually grave (citing HCJ 2433/24 Barzon-McKay v. Prime Minister, para. 6 (Apr. 1, 2024)).
Second, on the merits the allegations were far from established. The Court observed that it was entirely unclear how the existence of two Ministry letters bearing different dates compelled the conclusion that the Commissioner had forged documents. Moreover, both dates — June 8 and September 17, 2025 — represent a response that postdates the petitioner’s November 3, 2024 inquiry by more than six months, so the difference between them is immaterial to whether the Ministry responded on time. The inferential leap from a date discrepancy to intentional falsification by a senior state authority was, the Court found, unsupported.
Third, section 45(b) of the State Comptroller Law 5718-1958 expressly provides that “no court shall entertain a request for relief against the decisions and findings of the Public Complaints Commissioner regarding a complaint.” Judicial intervention is reserved for the rarest cases of extreme and manifest defects (citing HCJ 5341/23 Bernit v. State Comptroller (Jul. 24, 2023); HCJ 6825/06 Tzur v. State Comptroller (Jun. 24, 2009)). The rationale is that the complaint process is a supplementary channel that does not displace other remedies available to the complainant in the ordinary courts; imposing broad judicial review would unduly slow and burden that process. Nothing in this case came close to the exceptional threshold. No costs were awarded, as no response had been filed by the respondent, though the Court noted it had considered imposing costs on the State Treasury.
Key Takeaways
- A preliminary application to an agency cannot satisfy the exhaustion-of-remedies requirement unless it actually raises the specific claims later advanced in the petition; a general letter that omits the core allegations is insufficient.
- Section 45(b) of the State Comptroller Law erects a near-absolute bar on judicial review of the Public Complaints Commissioner’s decisions, and the High Court will intervene only upon a showing of extreme and unambiguous defect — a standard the petitioner fell far short of here.
- Pointing to a facial discrepancy between two documents (different dates, one signed and one unsigned) does not, without more, support an allegation of deliberate forgery by a senior state authority; the Court distinguished between a legitimate factual query and a baseless accusation filed in legal proceedings.
- The Public Complaints Commissioner process is a supplementary, not exclusive, avenue: complainants retain the right to seek substantive relief from the courts or labor tribunals on the underlying matter, which is part of the statutory rationale for limiting judicial oversight of the Commissioner’s procedural decisions.
Why It Matters
This decision reaffirms the exceptionally narrow scope of High Court review over the Public Complaints Commissioner’s decisions and clarifies the procedural prerequisites that petitioners must satisfy before invoking that review. For practitioners advising clients who have filed — or intend to file — complaints with the Commissioner, the ruling underscores that a preliminary letter must squarely raise the same grievances to be litigated, or the exhaustion requirement will defeat the petition at the threshold regardless of the merits.
The Court’s pointed closing remarks also carry a cautionary message about professional responsibility: allegations of forgery or deliberate deception against state institutions are treated as exceptionally serious, and the gap between noting an anomaly in official documents and publicly accusing an authority of criminal falsification must be bridged by concrete evidence, not inference. Filing such accusations without adequate foundation risks costs sanctions and, more broadly, undermines the credibility of legitimate administrative complaints.