Ministers tell High Court they had no choice but to create new process to fire AG, as old one wouldn’t have worked

Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli tell the High Court of Justice that the government had to redesign the dismissal process for Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara because none of the 21 living former justice ministers and attorneys general were willing to sit on the original dismissal advisory committee, or had already expressed an opinion about Baharav-Miara’s dismissal, or the government deemed them hostile to its agenda.

The ministers were responding to comments made by High Court Judge Noam Sohlberg in a technical decision on the issue on Tuesday, in which he recommended the government abandon its new dismissal process and revert to the original method to remove an attorney general, with a public, professional advisory committee that includes a former justice minister or attorney general.

Writing to the court, Levin and Chikli note that there are seven living former attorneys general, but that all of them issued a public position paper arguing against dismissing Baharav-Miara in March when the government began the initial dismissal process.

This, the ministers said, meant they could not be objective members on the dismissal advisory committee. All five members of the newly formed ministerial committee for dismissing Baharav-Miara had also previously expressed their opinion about firing her before the committee was established.

Levin says that he also found that 11 of the 14 former justice ministers were either “prevented from filling the role” on the committee, had expressed themselves publicly against firing Baharav-Miara, or were “clear opponents of the government’s policies.”

There were, therefore, only three relevant candidates, the ministers insisted, but despite Levin’s efforts to convince them, they refused to sit on the committee.

The ministers say that this left the government with no choice but to change the dismissal process, which they argued it was legally entitled to do under the terms of the 1959 Law for the Civil Service and the 1981 Law of Interpretations.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, one of the organizations which has petitioned the High Court against the government’s new dismissal process, says the ministers’ response demonstrated that the new method had been designed to fit Baharav-Miara “personally,” and constituted “drawing the target around the arrow” in order to get to the desired result.

And Yesh Atid MK Karine Elharrar comments on X, “If you didn’t find members for the committee who will agree to the dismissal, it is worthwhile understanding what everyone else understands: dismissing the attorney general is an illegitimate process designed entirely to harm the rule of law, and no thinking person will give a rubber stamp to such illegal actions.”