In his first Circular, Commissioner Asa Kling has ruled that henceforth, circulars will be numbered consecutively each year, so this circular will be 01/2011 and the next one will be 02/2011, etc.
In the past, circulars were annotated with the initials of the commissioner, and then numbered consecutively. Thus the circulars issued by previous commissioner Dr Meir Noam were numbered M.N.1, M.N. 2, etc. Under his predecessor Commissioner Goldberg, the circulars were numbered A.g. 1, A.G. 2, etc., and before that, under Michael Ophir, M.O. 1, M. O. 2, etc.
Other changes in format will include a reference to the relevant laws and regulations and a statement that the purpose of the circulars are to standardize and publicise practice points.
No reason was given for this break with tradition. My first suspicion was that Commissioner Assa Kling is A.K. II, however, on checking with Shimon Shalit who provided the names of all the previous commissioners and their deputies, it transpires that this is not the case.
I therefore suspect that this is a veiled criticism of his predecessor Dr Noam exceeding his authority and instituting sweeping substantive changes by circular, that decreeing things best left to the Ministry of Justice or even to the Knesset. By not initializing, the circulars are commissioner independent. I could, however, be wrong. Starting the clock each year could also be indicative that the new Commissioner thinks that it will be necessary to start the tally once a year as he has plans to issue an exorbitant number of rulings over the next eight years. I hope not. No doubt time will tell.
