Netanyahu tells High Court no legal justification to remove Ben Gvir from office

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells the High Court of Justice that he remains of the opinion that there is no legal problem with his appointment of Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir as national security minister and therefore rejects the position of the attorney general and petitioners that he must remove the far-right politician from office.

Netanyahu files his update to the court after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara filed her own update last month in which she maintained that legal efforts to prevent National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from undermining police independence had failed, effectively endorsing petitions asking the court to order Netanyahu to fire him.

“After the prime minister considered the matter and after receiving a detailed response from [Ben Gvir] regarding the events referred to in the petitions… the prime minister’s position remains unchanged: the appointment of Minister Ben Gvir as national security minister was made lawfully, and there are no grounds for either his administrative dismissal or his removal by judicial order,” Netanyahu’s lawyers write to the court.

The prime minister asserts in his response that there are no legal grounds for the court to intervene in his cabinet appointments and says that he should therefore not even need to address the specific points made by the petitioners or the attorney general alleging that Ben Gvir has undermined police independence.

Netanyahu also notes that Ben Gvir said in his own response to the court that he agrees with the principle of police independence.

Last month, Baharav-Miara highlighted to the court, among other concerns, recent public comments made by Ben Gvir alleging that an ongoing criminal investigation into a senior police officer was politically motivated; public comments about the police’s use of stun grenades during ultra-Orthodox protests; and ongoing intervention by the minister in police personnel appointments as examples of his actions violating the principle of police independence.