AG says ‘unlawful’ government move to shutter Army Radio fails to consider freedom of press

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara says a cabinet resolution to shutter Army Radio that is set to be passed today has a slew of substantive problems, including a failure to consider the impact on the freedom of the press, and states that the resolution is therefore unlawful and should not be approved.

Baharav-Miara says that the advisory committee on whose recommendations the cabinet resolution was drawn up was composed of individuals with clear political affiliations to the Likud party and did not include people with sufficient professional expertise to make a decision.

The attorney general adds that the committee used “non-pertinent” considerations in recommending closing Army Radio, including the “political diversity” of the content of Army Radio broadcasts, and did not properly consider “the possible injury to freedom of expression as a result of closing the station.”

Baharav-Miara also determined that the only legitimate way to close Army Radio at present was through legislation, since previous legal determinations by the Attorney General’s Office stated that Army Radio could only be closed by executive action if public broadcasting in Israel was “operative and stable.”

Given that Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has advanced legislation that would give the government control over the budget of Israel’s other public broadcaster, Kan, and sell off its news division, the attorney general says that public broadcasting cannot be considered “operative and stable,” and is instead “weakened, threatened, and institutionally silenced, and its future shrouded in mist.”

Concludes Baharav Miara, “For all these reasons, the cabinet resolution in question is unlawful and must be disqualified.”