Government accuses AG of ‘administrative coup’ amid mutual barbs over Haredi draft
Cabinet secretary writes angry letter after AG’s Office said government illegitimately okayed private counsel for its agencies in High Court case to ensure yeshiva funding
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs on Thursday assailed Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in a note to the High Court of Justice, accusing her of carrying out an “administrative coup” in her handling of the government’s stance regarding petitions demanding the conscription of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.
Fuchs’s comments came after the Attorney General’s Office upbraided the government on Wednesday for having passed a unilateral decision asserting that the Defense Ministry, the Education Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces can have private counsel representation in the High Court for the government’s position that it can continue to fund ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and not draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, in direct opposition to the attorney general’s position.
“The attorney general is carrying out an administrative coup, unfounded and unprecedented in Israel and in any other country in the world,” Fuchs wrote in his note to the High Court, reported in Hebrew media outlets.
Fuchs accused the Attorney General’s Office of trying to replace the government and unjustly separating the government from its ministries by allowing the government to obtain private counsel in the Haredi conscription and yeshiva funding petitions, but not granting the same right to the ministries that implement those policies.
On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon said the government’s attempt to secure private counsel for those agencies was an attempt to circumvent the attorney general’s position that yeshiva funding must be halted and efforts made to draft ultra-Orthodox men into the army, after the legal framework enabling the previous policies expired.
War cabinet minister and head of the National Unity party, Benny Gantz, replied to Fuchs’s broadside, strongly criticizing him by saying that “the cabinet secretary surely knows that in the State of Israel, the government is not above the law, and never will be.”
Gantz also took a swipe at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his efforts to persist with funding Haredi yeshivas and not drafting Haredi men into the army, saying he was sure the court would not accept the government’s position “which the prime minister is leading [and] which lacks national responsibility.”
Gantz added: “All of this is due to the political need to bring about a draft evasion law that will harm the national security and resilience during a time of war.”
The law allowing for blanket military service exemptions for Haredi yeshiva students expired in June 2023, and a government resolution instructing the IDF not to enforce conscription on such men expired on April 1.
The High Court of Justice issued an interim order on March 28 that state funding for Haredi yeshivas for students who would be obligated to enlist must be frozen, and that there was no longer any legal framework to not draft eligible Haredi men to the IDF.
This presented a massive political problem for Netanyahu and his coalition, since he does not have a majority without the ultra-Orthodox parties for whom the blanket exemptions from military service and yeshiva funding are critical priorities.
The attorney general firmly opposes the government’s position that it may continue its previous policies in the interim period before a new law has been passed, and has described it as having no legal basis since the legal framework that previously enabled those policies no longer exists. However, she has allowed the government as a whole to take private legal counsel to present that position in the High Court of Justice.
Limon told the government in a letter on April 21 that while Baharav-Miara had approved the government’s request for private legal counsel on the matter, this approval did not extend to the Defense Ministry, Education Ministry and IDF, whom he said would be represented by the State Attorney’s Office, as is usual.
Regardless, the government approved decision 1724 on Tuesday through a rarely used administrative mechanism that prevented the Attorney General’s Office from having any input on the matter.
On Wednesday, Limon wrote a furious letter to the government saying that the decision “distorted” Baharav-Miara’s approval for private legal counsel.
Former attorney general Avichai Mandelblit also weighed in on Thursday, accusing the government of attempting to carry out a “regime coup.”
He added that the measure “eliminated” the state legal advisory system and the protection it provided to the rule of law, and would allow the government to ignore the legal advice from that system — and the attorney general at its top — which has been a key component of Israeli law for decades.
Dr. Guy Lurie of the Israel Democracy Institute explained that by extending the private legal counsel to the relevant ministries and the IDF, which are involved in drafting citizens into the army and paying yeshivas, the government was essentially asserting that the attorney general’s position does not reflect the law for those agencies.
As such, they might now feel free to continue adhering to the policies of the government if the government’s private legal counsel says they are legitimate.
