Watchdog group petitions High Court to stop Levin’s effort to sideline AG on Sde Teiman leak case

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel files a request to the High Court of Justice asking that it issue an interim order against Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s efforts to sideline Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in the Sde Teiman video leak investigation.

The organization, a liberal legal advocacy group, also requests that the court issue a final decision regarding its petition to annul the government’s decision to fire the attorney general back in August.

Levin yesterday tapped State Ombudsman for Judges Asher Kula to oversee law enforcement processes regarding the Sde Teiman leak scandal, having told Baharav-Miara that neither she nor her office could be involved due to their involvement in the filing of submissions to the High Court on the affair that turned out to be inaccurate.

The Movement for Quality Government’s request insists that Levin’s interpretation of a law he cited to justify his actions has “not even the faintest foundation,” adding that “it is unacceptable that in democratic country a minister, a political official, decides of his own accord without any legal authority to harm the authority of the attorney general on criminal matters, while a criminal investigation is underway, while passing those authorities to another official.”

A separate petition filed earlier by Likud MK Avichai Boaron requests that the High Court do the opposite — order the attorney general to remove herself from the case — for the same reasons as Levin has alleged.

The court this morning asked the attorney general to respond, giving her until noon tomorrow.