Lawyer for AG tells top court that she lacks authority to order PM’s recusal

Aner Helman, who is representing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara at the hearing on the recusal law, tells the High Court that an attorney general cannot order a prime minister to step down.

“There is an impression in the public that the attorney general can recuse the prime minister, but this is not the case,” Helman says. “It is the government that determines that the prime minister is incapacitated from serving in his position and not the attorney general.”

“The role of the attorney general is to give their legal opinion on the issue,” he adds, noting members of the government consulted then-attorney general Meni Mazuz after prime minister Ariel Sharon went into coma after suffering a massive stroke in 2006, “but they didn’t have to.”

Helman also says Baharav-Miara does not believe that a violation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a conflict of interest agreement barring him from involvement in judicial matters due to his ongoing graft trial should lead to his recusal.