Government implies it may not abide by ruling if High Court doesn’t reject petitions against new method of firing AG

Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli file a notice to the High Court of Justice asking it to reject petitions against the government’s new method for firing the attorney general, while apparently implying that the coalition could ignore a ruling on the matter.

The notice is highly unusual since it is not a formal legal response to the petitions and is not written by a lawyer hired by the government, but rather by the ministers themselves.

In the notice, Levin and Chikli do not address the key legal arguments against the new method for firing an attorney general, which the government instituted in June after it was unable to advance the dismissal of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara under the previous system.

Instead, the two ministers lambaste Baharav-Miara for what they say is her “systematic” opposition to government policies due to her “personal and political positions,” and say she should have resigned when the government issued a no-confidence statement against her in March.

They also appear to implicitly threaten not to abide by a ruling against the new process for firing an attorney general, should the court issue one.

“The government is no longer willing to reconcile itself with a reality in which it is systematically and unprecedentedly denied the legal advice and representation which it deserves,” write Levin and Chikli.

They insist that the petitions against the new system for firing an attorney general “should be rejected outright,” saying that a ruling against the government would “decree upon the public a decree which would silence and mortally harm government work and which would contradict the essence of democracy.”

This, the ministers write, “would be a totally unjustified decree which cannot be met.”

Levin and Chikli accuse Baharav-Miara of having abused her authority “to breaking point, and having actually broken it.”

They add: “Now she expects the court to also break it, with the severe implications that would result from it.”

In March, the government set in motion the process of firing the attorney general under a system established in 2000. But in June, after it failed to convene a full quorum of the statuary committee designated under that system, it passed a cabinet resolution establishing a new five-member ministerial committee to replace the old panel.

That committee is scheduled to hold a dismissal hearing for Baharav-Miara tomorrow.

Government watchdog groups immediately filed petitions against June’s cabinet resolution, arguing that it unlawfully changes the method of dismissal after already embarking on the original process, and requested interim orders from the court to freeze all aspects of the new process until a final ruling.