AG: Government legal overhaul will ‘push democratic values into a corner’

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara strongly criticizes the government’s proposals to overhaul the legal system in a speech to the Israeli Association of Public Law Conference, saying they will create an “imbalanced system of checks and balances,” and that “the principle of majority rule will push other democratic values into a corner.”

Baharav-Miara joins Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut in harshly criticizing the plans to subjugate legal advisers to government ministers instead of them offering an independent and objective legal opinion on planned ministerial action.

She also says that the government has failed to present the various pieces of legislation to carry out these reforms to the Attorney General’s Office as is usual for government legislation.

“As jurists who serve the public, we must express our clear professional opinion,” says the attorney general.

She also condemned the vitriolic attacks on state legal advisers and prosecutors, saying such attacks were “irresponsible,” and were giving rise to “aggression” against such legal professionals in courts and other public places.