Ministers to discuss bill that would let new governments sack IDF chief, AG, other top officials

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation will decide on Sunday whether the coalition will support a bill allowing the government to terminate the tenure of almost all senior security officials and public office holders in the country within its first 100 days in office.

The bill has been submitted to the Knesset by MK Zvika Fogel of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, but it is unclear whether the committee will support it.

Under the terms of the bill, a government in its first 100 days since taking office could terminate the tenure of the attorney general; the IDF chief of staff; the head of the Shin Bet; the head of the Mossad; the police commissioner; the head of the Israel Prison Service; the Civil Service commissioner; and the head of the budget department in the Finance Ministry.

Any of those officeholders could be dismissed from office without cause if they had served more than two-thirds of their legally mandated time in office.

But the bill would also allow the government to dismiss such officials before they reach that period under “special circumstances,” including “substantive differences of opinion between the office holder and the government.”

Currently, special procedures are in place, requiring the government to show proper cause for firing all of those officials, and they are subject to judicial review by the High Court of Justice to ensure that such senior officer holders are not fired for arbitrary, political or otherwise ulterior motives.