Karhi rejects High Court order to extend term of public broadcaster council member

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi on Sunday vowed to ignore an interim order issued by the High Court of Justice that ordered him to extend the tenure of a council member of the Kan Public Broadcast Corporation until the court issues a final decision on Karhi’s refusal until now to appoint new members to the council.

Karhi, who has been in a legislative battle to dismantle the public broadcaster, called the High Court ruling “unlawful,” and said that he will instead appoint Kan’s council members through a committee he created.

Kan council member Amir Sabhat’s tenure is due to end on July 13, which would leave just five spaces filled on the 12-member panel.

Since the quorum for decision-making on the council is seven, it has practically ceased to function after five members retired in November last year and another retired in February this year.

The council is therefore unable to approve budgets, set broadcast policy, or wield authority on any other matter for the public broadcaster.

Karhi has insisted that new council members will be appointed by a selection committee, but that has yet to transpire.

The Likud minister vowed not to abide by the High Court’s ruling that he must extend Sabhat’s tenure, calling it “unlawful” and claiming that only the communications minister can extend a council member’s tenure.

“In the State of Israel, everyone is subject to the law, including their highnesses,” Karhi said acerbically about the High Court justices.

This is not the first time that Karhi has vowed to defy the High Court regarding the appointment of members to Kan’s governing council, as he made a similar pledge in January when a similar order was issued.

“And as with the previous illegal order, this order will not be honored here either. The corporation council will soon be formed through the legal search committee that I appointed, as its chair, and not according to arbitrary orders,” he said Sunday.

Karhi is on the right-most flank of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and an outspoken critic of the judiciary. A minister’s refusal to implement a High Court order — essentially a standoff between two branches of government — would create a constitutional crisis, making it unclear how authorities and agencies should act.

In January, Karhi said the High Court’s ruling was “void, nonbinding and meaningless,” while warning “my friends on the left” about “what kind of ‘rule of law’ you are defending, and what ‘democracy’ you are pretending to save.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid condemned Karhi for his comments at the time, and said that if Karhi did not comply with the High Court order, there was no reason for anyone to comply with his instructions as minister.

“A minister has to follow the law. If he doesn’t follow the law, there is no point in obeying him,” the opposition leader said in January.

Karhi has pushed legislation for over two years that looks to privatize the public broadcaster or shut it down entirely.

One bill Karhi has advanced stipulates that if a private buyer for Kan cannot be found within two years, the broadcaster will be shuttered completely and its intellectual property will revert to the government. The bill passed its preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum last November before becoming stuck in committee.

Karhi’s efforts have been largely blocked by Knesset Economic Affairs Committee chairman David Bitan, a fellow Likud MK, who has declared that “public broadcasting is necessary.”

But last month, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted to back a Karhi-proposed bill that would privatize the Kan public broadcaster’s news division, in a move that the broadcaster said is “intended to terrorize the Kan news division and its staff and benefit those close to the government.”

Israel has fallen 15 spots in Reporters Without Borders’ annual press freedom index since the government took power in late 2022. While launching heated attacks on many Israeli media outlets, the coalition has poured money into the pro-government Channel 14, nearly quadrupling its advertising spending there over the past two years, according to news website The 7th Eye, which covers the local media sector.

Critics, including the Foreign Press Association and the Union of Journalists in Israel, have accused the government of undermining democracy, while the bills’ backers argue that the legislation would liberalize the media market and increase competition.

Since coming to power, the coalition has sought to end government advertising in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper and has promoted bills to compel Kan to justify its decisions to Bitan’s committee on an annual basis, and give the government direct control over the broadcaster’s budget.