Head of panel for hiring and firing attorney general ends his term, creating vacuum

The term of former Supreme Court president Asher Grunis as head of the permanent committee for hiring and firing the attorney general ended Monday after a four-year term, a development that could have repercussions on the government’s effort to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and replace her.

Grunis is unlikely to be replaced in the near future since the role is appointed by the Supreme Court president, conditioned upon the agreement of the justice minister, after the latter has initiated the replacement process.

Current Justice Minister Yariv Levin has, however, refused to recognize current Supreme Court President Isaac Amit as president ever since he was appointed, and is therefore likely to refuse to initiate the process, as required under the cabinet decision from the year 2000 determining how an attorney general is hired and fired.

In the meantime, the legal process for the petitions requesting that the Supreme Court — in its capacity as High Court of Justice — annul the government’s decision to fire Baharav-Miara under a newly introduced process is coming to a head.

The High Court of Justice unanimously recommended on September 1 that the government cancel its decision to fire the attorney general, and instead seek the recommendation of the Grunis committee if it still wished to dismiss her, as per the regulations laid out in the cabinet decision from 2000.

It gave the government until September 14 to inform the court whether it agreed to the proposal, and if not, to submit its final response to the petitions by October 30.

The government said in response that it would agree to revert to the Grunis committee if the court approved its request not to include a former justice minister or former attorney general on the committee, due to its concerns that it could not find such a figure whom it does not regard as adversarial to the government.

The court, however, rejected this proposal, meaning that the government now has until Thursday to submit its final response, should it so wish.

It would appear that the court’s suggestion to revert to the public committee that had been headed by Grunis is now no longer relevant, however, since the court rejected the government’s proposal and the government did not make any further response.

But failing to appoint a new chair of the public committee would make it harder to come to any kind of compromise, since the court will not likely agree to bypass the public committee as the government has sought to do.

The government began its effort to fire Baharav-Miara back in March this year and sought to get the recommendation of the Grunis committee.

When it could not find a former justice minister or attorney general who would agree to sit on the panel — as required — it passed a new cabinet resolution creating a ministerial committee to bypass the committee entirely.

The court took a dim view of this process when it unanimously told the government to revert to the Grunis committee.

Even if the dismissal of Baharav-Miara somehow passed judicial review, which seems highly unlikely, the government would ostensibly not be able to appoint a new attorney general due to Levin’s likely refusal to appoint a new head of the hiring and firing committee, although it could, in theory, pass another cabinet resolution to circumvent that problem as well.