AG summoned to a hearing pending her dismissal; Regev warns court not to intervene

Summons follows cabinet resolution bypassing statutory firing process; ministers suggest government should disobey High Court should it try to block move

By Jeremy Sharon

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and ToI Staff 9 June 2025, 5:25 pm

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Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara was summoned Monday for a June 17 hearing on her potential dismissal, in the next step of the government’s efforts to oust her from her post, as ministers indicated they would disobey a court decision against the move.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, head of a newly established ministerial committee for firing the attorney general, told her that she will be given the opportunity to “lay out the arguments [she] might have” against the government’s intention to fire her due to alleged “unfitting behavior” and “substantive and ongoing differences of opinion [with the government]… creating a situation that prevents effective cooperation.”

The government approved a cabinet resolution Sunday bypassing the existing procedure for firing an attorney general, which until then had required the government to first seek the recommendation of a professional statutory committee headed by former Supreme Court president Asher Grunis.

Instead, a five-member ministerial committee, selected by the government, will give its recommendation and then pass the decision back to the full cabinet, which would need 75 percent of ministers to vote in favor of dismissing the attorney general.

The committee will be made up of Chikli, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, and Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli.

The authorization of the resolution on Sunday is a highly consequential step given that the attorney general is considered one of the key guardians of law enforcement and the rule of law in the country, whose appointment has long been subject to the apolitical oversight of the statutory committee.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, attends a session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 7, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Following the approval of Sunday’s resolution, Ben Gvir called on Chikli to hold the hearing this week, saying that “a decision needs to be made as soon as possible.”

Responding to the resolution, the Attorney General’s Office said Sunday that it was unlawful, and that it changed the rules of the dismissal process after the government had already embarked on the original process but was making no headway on getting the dismissal done that way.

The Israel Democracy Guard organization immediately filed a petition to the High Court of Justice asking it to annul the resolution, with the court expected to respond soon.

The court strongly opposes efforts to write legislation or change governmental procedure with short-term, narrow objectives in mind, especially when dealing with a process already underway.

However, Transportation Minister Miri Regev indicated Monday that the government would not obey the High Court should it choose to intervene.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin attends a rally against the judiciary, outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, on June 5, 2025. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)

“I suggest that the High Court not pull too hard on the rope… Because if they say no, we will say that’s enough,” Regev told a conference on women hosted by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

According to a report by Kan news, three other ministers along with Regev said during Sunday’s cabinet meeting that the government should not obey the High Court if it intervenes.

The passage of the resolution comes amid the most severe crisis so far within the current coalition, with the government teetering due to ultra-Orthodox parties’ demands that decades of blanket military service exemptions for yeshiva students be enshrined in law.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin set in motion the process of firing Baharav-Miara in March, when the cabinet voted unanimously in favor of a no-confidence motion against her. But he has been unable to convene the statutory committee laid out in the 2000 cabinet resolution, since no former justice minister or attorney general was found willing to sit on the panel as one of its four members, while the Knesset also failed to approve an MK to sit on the committee.

The government and the attorney general have been in conflict since the government was sworn in at the end of 2022, with the government accusing her of serially thwarting its policies and actions, and Baharav-Miara accusing the government of acting unlawfully and advancing unconstitutional legislation.