by JNS Staff
The prime minister was not present during the vote to avoid a conflict of interest.
The Israeli government voted unanimously on Monday evening on a motion of no confidence in Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
The vote took place during a Cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu absented himself from the meeting to avoid a conflict of interest.
Baharav-Miara also didn’t attend the meeting, nor did she send a representative in her stead.
Immediately following the vote, the Yesh Atid Party, led by opposition leader Yair Lapi,d petitioned the High Court of Justice against the government’s decision, claiming the process was illegal.
Separately, the Movement for Quality Government, a left-wing NGO, also petitioned the court against Baharav-Miara’s dismissal.
The High Court will almost certainly take up the petitions, having ruled on July 18 that a Cabinet decision to sack the attorney general would not take effect until the justices reviewed the procedure and the reasons for the firing.
“Should the government decide to dismiss the attorney general, the decision will not take effect immediately, in order to allow sufficient time for judicial review,” Justice Noam Sohlberg wrote in his ruling.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin said at Monday’s hearing that “it is impossible to accept a situation in which the court tries to impose on the government an attorney general who is completely political, which has no trust in her, with whom there is no cooperation, [and] who fails the government and refuses to represent it.”
He noted that the decision to remove the attorney general was not taken overnight, but part of a long process, in which the government first tried to work with her. “We gave her all the opportunities to express her position. She did not address the allegations in a substantive manner at any stage,” he said.
Levin noted that through the subsequent hearings, the attorney general did not show up nor send a representative on her behalf, saying “this attests to her deep contempt for the government.”
Just before the vote, on Monday morning, Baharav-Miara sent a letter accusing the government of firing her for political reasons. She said Levin wanted an obedient attorney general who would legitimize illegalities.
She also wrote that “the dismissal and replacement of the attorney general has the potential to affect the prime minister’s criminal proceedings and the criminal investigations of other members of the government and their associates.”
The vote follows a July 20 ministerial committee meeting led by Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli, which had voted to recommend that the government fire the attorney general.
That vote came after Baharav-Miara was summoned twice within one week for a hearing, but failed to appear, claiming that the procedure established by the Cabinet was illegal.
Baharav-Miara had asked the High Court for a temporary injunction to freeze the push to dismiss her via the ministerial committee hearing, and to block any additional government actions related to her removal.
“The process of ending the term of office of the attorney general has become a purely political process,” she said in a statement to the Supreme Court on July 7.
While the government has the authority to fire an AG, in the past, such a decision could only be made at the recommendation of a professional committee composed of justices, lawyers, academics and ministers.
However, in a unanimous decision on June 8, the Cabinet amended the procedure by which an attorney general may be dismissed, so that the justice minister can submit a request for the dismissal to a panel composed of five government ministers.
Under the new system, after a hearing by the ministerial committee, a vote to dismiss must be brought before the full Cabinet, which needs to pass the decision with at least 75% of its members voting in favor. The Monday vote, as it turned out, was 100%.
Chikli said that the calls for Baharav-Miara’s firing come against the backdrop of “inappropriate conduct and substantial and prolonged differences of opinion between the government and the attorney general, creating a situation that prevents effective cooperation.”
Israel’s governing coalition has been at loggerheads with the attorney general since its formation after the general election of Nov. 1, 2022.
Baharav-Miara had been appointed to the post by the previous government led by then-premier Naftali Bennett in 2022.
In Israel, for decades, the attorney general position was considered a “legal advisor” to the government and was expected to be in political sympathy with it, bearing more similarity to the U.S. attorney general.
However, with time, the position gained greater independence, starting with Meir Shamgar (1968-1975), expanding under Aharon Barak (1975-1978) and finally transforming into a powerful post by a 1993 Israeli Supreme Court ruling.
JNS Staff
Source: https://www.jns.org/israeli-cabinet-to-vote-on-dismissal-of-ag/
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