Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet is set to meet on Sunday to vote and likely approve a motion of no confidence in Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.
The prime minister himself will not be present during the debate and vote, due to his conflict-of-interest agreement that blocks him from any moves that could affect his ongoing criminal trial. The attorney-general leads the country’s law enforcement apparatus and, as such, oversees the trial.
The A-G will then attend a hearing or series of hearings in front of a statutory advisory committee chaired by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Asher Grunis. Following the advisory committee’s conclusions, the government can officially fire her.
The process could take months. The government first must fill the committee’s ranks. In addition to Grunis, it currently includes Adv. Tammy Olman, who represents the Israel Bar Association, and law professor Ron Shapira, who represents academia. However, it currently lacks two members: a former justice minister or former attorney-general and a current member of the Knesset.
No former attorney-general has agreed to take on the role. Haaretz reported on Saturday that Justice Minister Yariv Levin would attempt to appoint current Knesset Speaker MK Amir Ohana as the former justice minister on the committee. According to Haaretz, this appointment is unlikely to pass a challenge in the High Court, since the rationale in appointing a former minister is that he or she is no longer associated with the current government.
Levin will thus face difficulties in forming the committee. Once formed, it is unclear how long its deliberations will take. If the committee eventually advises against Baharav-Miara’s removal, a government decision to the contrary will also likely face serious challenges in the High Court.
The motion of no confidence was initially submitted two weeks ago by Justice Minister Yariv Levin. In an 84-page letter to the government’s ministers, he requested that they support the no-confidence vote and outlined the charges against her.
According to Levin, the A-G had intentionally tripped up the government with unnecessarily strict legal opinions in order to topple the government.
Levin added that to this end, the A-G had not hesitated to harm national security by failing to block the international arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by failing, as head of Israel’s law enforcement apparatus, to lower organized crime.
Letter to government ministers
Baharav-Miara sent a letter to government ministers ahead of the meeting, in which she argued that the facts laid out in the no-confidence proposal were “partial.”
The A-G wrote that her office had assisted the government in passing hundreds of decisions, represented it in over 2,000 court cases, and assisted in developing policy regarding the war. She argued that the cases where the A-G ruled that government moves were “not legally viable” were negligible compared to the entirety of the A-G’s work.
Baharav-Miara added that the no-confidence proposal was based on a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the A-G’s role. She explained that the A-G was required to advise the government regarding the limits of the law. Her opposition to government initiatives that violate the law was her duty and should not be a basis for her removal.
“The move should be understood as is – not an attempt to promote trust, but loyalty to the political echelon. Not governance, but unlimited governing power, as part of a broad attempt to weaken the judicial branch and deter the entire professional echelon. The government wishes to be above the law, and act without checks and balances, even in the most sensitive times – emergency, protests against the government, and election periods,” she wrote.
Former Supreme Court judges oppose the move
Several retired Supreme Court judges published a public letter on Sunday against Baharav-Miara’s removal.
“Such a move to dismiss [the A-G] endangers in a real way the State of Israel’s being a state governed by law, founded on proper governance and administrative procedures,” the judges wrote.
The letter was signed by former Supreme Court chief judges Aharon Barak, Dorit Beinisch, and Esther Hayut, and former Supreme Court judges Yizhak Zamir, Shlomo Levin, Theodor Or, Hanan Melzer, Elyakim Rubinstein, Uzi Fogelman, Yizhak Engelrad, Dalia Dorner, Tova Strasberg Cohen, Ayala Proccia, Edna Arbel, Yoram Danziger, Uri Shoham, Meni Mazuz, George Kara, and Anat Baron.
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