Attorney general asks court to void government moves paving way for her firing

By Jeremy Sharon

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7 July 2025, 5:05 pm

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Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara attends a Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting, in Jerusalem, on April 27, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara calls a government resolution passed in June to change the way an attorney general is fired “fundamentally illegal,” in a legal submission to the High Court of Justice.

In March, the government set in motion the process to fire the attorney general through the designated statutory committee. But after it failed to convene a full quorum of that committee, it passed a cabinet resolution in June establishing a five-member ministerial committee to replace the old panel.

The attorney general’s comments come in response to petitions by government watchdog groups asking the High Court to declare the government resolution void and to freeze its implementation until a final ruling on the issue.

“The decision contradicts the fundamentals of the rules of administrative law, as well as the rulings of the court, including recent ones,” writes the Attorney General’s Office.

The response also notes that all five members of the ministerial committee who are supposed to give Baharav-Miara a hearing pending dismissal have already expressed their position that she should be fired in a no-confidence statement the government issued in March.

This means that the new ministerial committee cannot conduct a fair hearing for the attorney general, the response argues. The hearing for Baharav-Miara in front of the five-member ministerial committee is scheduled for a week from today.

The Attorney General’s Office points out that the new method of firing an attorney general was only adopted by the government after it failed to convene the professional statutory committee that had previously been tasked with firing the attorney general.

This kind of decision — derided by critics as moving the goalposts during the game — is generally frowned upon by the High Court.

“In this state of affairs, it will not be a hearing held in accordance with the law, but rather a hearing for the sake of appearance,” the Attorney General’s Office writes.