Attorney general backs petition against PM-appointed acting civil service chief

Gali Baharav-Miara sides with watchdog group that says Netanyahu’s pick for commissioner, Roi Kahlon, isn’t qualified, and his selection by PM alone is unacceptable

Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, November 1, 2024. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO); Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara at a farewell ceremony for retiring acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman, at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, October 1, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/POOL)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, November 1, 2024. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO); Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara at a farewell ceremony for retiring acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman, at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, October 1, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/POOL)

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara took the side of a petition against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pick for acting civil service commissioner, telling the High Court of Justice on Sunday that she too opposes the prime minister’s choice.

Netanyahu appointed Roi Kahlon last week, in defiance of the attorney general’s position.

The State Attorney’s Office, writing for the attorney general, said Kahlon is unqualified for the job, that there was therefore a legal impediment to appointing him, and that the petition calling for the appointment to be canceled should be accepted.

It was the latest confrontation between the attorney general and the government that has led some ministers to demand that she be fired.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel filed a petition against Kahlon’s appointment. In the state’s response to the petition, Baharav-Miara argued that Kahlon, who served for 15 years in the State Attorney’s Office, does not have the necessary senior management experience laid down in the criteria for the civil service commissioner position.

“The appointment was made with a blatant lack of compatibility between Respondent 3’s [Kahlon’s] experience and the requirements of this elevated and sensitive position,” said Baharav-Miara while highlighting the extensive powers and influence that even an acting head of the civil service wields.

“On a substantive examination of the matter, his qualifications and experience are not suitable for the position, even as an acting commissioner,” she added.

Baharav-Miara also railed against a government move that gave Netanyahu the power to install the commissioner, rather than a committee, as she prefers, telling the court that the current situation “raises weighty difficulties.”

Attorney Roi Kahlon (Shelly Padan)

Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs said that Netanyahu filed his response via his attorney David Peter, who told the court that Kahlon “meets all the requirements for the role and that there is no basis for the petition.”

Fuchs insisted “there is no gap” between the manner in which Kahlon’s senior management experience was presented and the facts, “and any other such claim in this regard misleads the court and the public.”

He added that it is a “wrong and distorted claim” that Kahlon does not meet the criteria of senior management.

The Movement for a Quality Government said in a statement that it will continue to argue the case for its petition in court, as well as in favor of the attorney general’s system of finding the commissioner via a selection committee, “in order to preserve the professionalism and statehood of the public service.”

The High Court will hold hearings over the appointment on Wednesday.

Baharav-Miara’s office told Netanyahu last week that Kahlon did not meet the criteria for the position. In a position paper, Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon wrote that Kahlon claimed in his resumé to have far greater management experience than he actually had and that his appointment was therefore “unreasonable in the extreme.”

Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs at the Knesset, in Jerusalem on July 31, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

In a statement last month announcing Kahlon’s selection, Netanyahu’s office wrote that the prime minister’s candidate had “extensive experience in the field of senior management, with impressive achievements in civil service.”

According to the statement, Kahlon began his public service with a 15-year stint at the State Attorney’s Office. During that time, he served for six years as an attorney for the attorney general and was also the supervisor for discipline in the Civil Service Commission. He also spent four years as head of the economic crime team.

Last year, he was appointed as head of the team at the Prime Minister’s Office, combating an epidemic of violent crime in the Arab community.

In his position paper against the choice of Kahlon, however, Limon contended that the candidate did not have senior management experience of sufficient duration to qualify him for the job. He also noted that Kahlon claimed in his resumé to have far greater management experience than he actually had.

Netanyahu and Baharav-Miara have been at loggerheads over the civil service commissioner appointment since last August, when the government approved a measure allowing the prime minister to directly nominate the next commissioner, rather than use a search committee.

The measure was opposed by Baharav-Miara, who has instead insisted that the role of civil service commissioner, which involves supervising civil servants, be approved by a search committee headed by a retired Supreme Court justice.

Amid the ongoing legal battle over the issue, the High Court of Justice froze the process for appointing a new permanent civil service commissioner, leaving Netanyahu to appoint Kahlon as a temporary placeholder commissioner instead.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara along with several government ministers, some of whom she has strongly criticized, as well cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs, with whom she has frequently clashed, at a special government conference on Jerusalem Day at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, June 5, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Kahlon is succeeding former Civil Service commissioner Daniel Hershkowitz, who left office last month, following a September decision extending his tenure until December 12 or until another permanent commissioner could be appointed.

Hershkowitz left office without a permanent successor.

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