High Court orders AG and Ben Gvir to reach deal on safeguarding police independence

The High Court of Justice on Thursday told National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the attorney general to reach an agreement to curb any undue influence by Ben Gvir on police work.

The injunction followed a lengthy hearing Wednesday on petitions, backed by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, demanding Netanyahu be forced to fire Ben Gvir after the minister’s repeated alleged violations of a commitment to Baharav-Miara that he would not meddle politically in police work.

In their decision Thursday, the nine justices who heard the petitions ordered Ben Gvir to refrain from “expressing himself in the matter of using police force against citizens, including ongoing investigations.”

Ben Gvir was also ordered to secure the recommendation of police top brass, and solicit the opinion of the attorney general a week in advance, before making senior appointments “with significant influence in the realms of investigations, law enforcement, freedom of expression and protest and [police’s] legal counsel.”

Ben Gvir is already required to secure a recommendation from top police brass to make senior appointments.

Nonetheless, Ben Gvir sounded off defiantly on social media, writing that he will “keep making appointments based on who implements [my] policy, as I’ve done until now, and if the attorney general interferes, we’ll blow up the negotiations.”

The injunction did not accept Baharav-Miara’s requests that, until there was a new mechanism in place to curb undue influence, Ben Gvir be barred from making any senior police appointments or from being in contact with police officers without the presence of police chief Daniel Levy.

Nor did the injunction accept Baharav-Miara’s request that Ben Gvir be barred from accompanying police operations.

Under the ruling, Baharav-Miara was given until Sunday to give the court in a sealed envelope the draft procedures she has exchanged with Ben Gvir’s representatives about curbing undue influence on police.

The ruling also required Ben Gvir, Baharav-Miara and Netanyahu to update the court by May 3 if they managed to reach a “framework of principles,” and to elaborate on remaining gaps if they do not reach an agreement.

The judges said the ruling lends “the validity of a [legal] decision” to the framework that Ben Gvir and Baharav-Miara reached in May last year, and that “the parties will be entitled to bring before us claims” on the violation of either the new or earlier frameworks.

In December, Baharav-Miara wrote to Netanyahu that Ben Gvir had turned the earlier framework into a “dead letter” by publicly commenting on ongoing police investigations, intervening in police promotions on political grounds, and seeking to determine operative police policies.

The violations “anchored in a legal and factual foundation” petitioners’ demands that Netanyahu remove Ben Gvir, Baharav-Miara said at the time.