Government-appointed media regulatory body chief resigns, citing court freeze on tenure

The government-appointed head of the Second Authority, the commercial broadcasting regulatory body, announced Sunday night that she was resigning her position, months after the High Court of Justice froze her appointment.

Yifat Ben Hai Segev, a government loyalist and former chair of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, said she could not remain as the nominal head of the Second Authority because of her objections to how the High Court has managed the case against her appointment.

Earlier this year the court halted the entry of Ben Hai Segev as head of the Second Authority Council, along with two other government appointees to the body, as it examined petitions against their appointment which claimed they were part of an effort to politicize the council and stymie the buyout of one of Israel’s most influential media outlets.

The fierce struggle for control over the Second Authority has boiled over into a constitutional crisis between the government and the court, and also comes against the background of far-reaching government legislation that would weaken the Second Authority and increase government control over broadcast media regulation.

“There is still no ruling from the High Court of Justice. Four months have passed. I didn’t take the position for the sake of the position. I saw myself as a representative of the public. In such an absurd situation, I can’t just sit on the sidelines, because silence is complicity,” Ben Hai Segev said on pro-government network Channel 14 on Sunday night.

“This is an exceptional, distorted situation that must not be normalized. We have entered a recurring pattern in which the government makes an appointment, someone goes to the High Court, and the High Court stops it.”

Ben Hai Segev’s resignation comes amid a bitter fight over the Second Authority between the government, its opponents who petitioned the court against the appointments, and the court itself.

The proximate cause of the struggle is the proposed purchase of Channel 13 by entrepreneur Assaf Rappaport and a group of hi-tech businessmen, which must be approved by the Second Authority. Rappaport has been an outspoken critic of the government, first over its judicial overhaul agenda and then over its handling of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, invasion.

The Union of Journalists and other organizations alleged in their High Court petitions that the appointments to the Second Authority made by the government in March were overtly political and designed to thwart the sale of Channel 13 to Rappaport.

“The Second Authority Council should be staffed by professionals, for the benefit of the entire public, and not political appointees who act in the interests of the government,” the Union of Journalists told the High Court.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the court in response to the petitions that Ben Hai Segev’s appointment should be annulled, citing potential conflicts of interest and improper procedure.

In a May ruling, the High Court then froze the operations of the Second Authority before it could make a decision on the Channel 13 sale with the new council members in place, and until the court could issue a final ruling on the controversial appointments.

But six members of the Second Authority council then resigned one after the other — reportedly under heavy pressure from Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi — taking the number of members down to nine out of 15, meaning that the council could no longer function due to the quorum requirement.

This move would have therefore thwarted the sale of Channel 13 since the council would not be able to convene and approve the buyout.

Critically, five of those resigning who had been reappointed by the government for a new term on the council stated that they would not be resigning from the incoming council, just the outgoing panel.

This led the High Court to issue a sharply critical ruling against the government, accusing it of pressuring the council members into resigning to prevent the court from ruling on the petitions. The court ruled that the resignations would therefore not count when bearing in mind the council’s quorum, enabling it to convene and approve the Channel 13 sale should it so wish.

Several weeks after this court decision, the government issued an unprecedented cabinet resolution saying it did not see the court decision as valid and by extension would see any decision made by the Second Authority Council under the terms of the court ruling, meaning the sale of Channel 13, as invalid.

Ben Hai Segev is a former chair of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council who also served on the advisory board for Channel 13. She was a witness for the prosecution in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial, but reversed her testimony in court in 2022 in favor of the premier from what she had originally told investigators before the premier was indicted in 2020.

She has railed at media outlets and the attorney general, while accusing them of engaging in a plot against her.

The other two appointees are outspoken supporters of Netanyahu.