AG’s office accuses cabinet secretary of issuing unauthorized government legal briefs
Deputy attorney general says Yossi Fuchs intervened in IDF’s enlistment of Haredi students; PM’s office hits back at AG for saying important cabinet decisions are adopted unlawfully
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
For the second time in as many days, the Attorney General’s Office and Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs engaged in a public dispute on Wednesday, with the former accusing Fuchs of issuing a legal brief to enable government action when he lacked the authority to do so.
In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon on Monday, Fuchs wrote that the Attorney General’s Office had intervened unnecessarily in the matter of which ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students the Israel Defense Forces enlists and how, in light of what he said was the leeway the High Court gave to the government in its ruling on the matter.
Limon responded that Fuchs’s missive was designed to allow the government to act against the law regarding conscription to the IDF.
The deputy attorney general referred to the rulings and orders of the High Court of Justice and the attorney general that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the army and must do so without preference to different subsets of that community.
The Defense Ministry and the IDF had initially sought to draft ultra-Orthodox students who are also employed, as a way of not angering the community’s rabbinic leadership by drafting students in full-time study at elite yeshivas; the attorney general ruled that such an approach would be discriminatory.
“The cabinet secretary is not authorized to issue legal briefs to the government, and the government cannot rely on such a legal brief,” wrote Limon.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara made similar comments in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, saying Fuchs gave “a legal opinion with far-reaching consequences in the realm of security” and did so “without authority,” without going into further detail.
“For some time now, significant government decisions have been made in a flawed process,” Baharav-Miara told Netanyahu, in a letter also sent to the press.
The Prime Minister’s Office fired back on Wednesday, calling it “mystifying” that “in the midst of security tensions,” the Attorney General’s Office had published two press statements “with empty claims about the professional work of the cabinet secretary.”
Netanyahu’s office said Fuchs’ letter to Limon “dealt with criticism over the unusual (and unauthorized) intervention of the Attorney General’s Office over the discretion of the IDF.”
In her letter, which was also sent to the press, Baharav-Miara told Netanyahu that his government was acting unlawfully when adopting important cabinet decisions, saying he need to put things “back on track.”
The attorney general, who has repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu and his government, alleged the texts of such decisions are shared with the relevant authorities either just before or during the cabinet meeting in which they are being voted on, and sometimes are backed by legal briefs issued by unauthorized officials, including Fuchs and even private attorneys.
Baharav-Miara added that such behavior violates governmental procedures and that the cabinet secretariat “must act in a professional and appropriate manner” to ensure that the government is acting in a legitimate fashion.
Fuchs later rejected her criticism, saying her complaint to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “harmed the work of the cabinet and public trust.”
A statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office argued that Fuch’s letter was not a legal brief, but rather a memo of the “greatest secrecy” which he sent to the head of the National Security Council, and that the attorney general and the prime minister’s military secretary were also copied on.
“In total contrast to the attorney general’s claim, the cabinet secretary’s letter was sent in the framework of his authority as secretary of the Security Cabinet, does not constitute a legal opinion and has no implications in the security field,” insisted the statement on Fuchs’s behalf.
“The attempt to attribute ‘severe consequences in the realm of security” in the public letter which the attorney general sent to the press — to a letter which dealt with professional administrative issues alone is a distortion of reality, harms the work of the cabinet and public trust,” asserted the statement.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
