The leaders of Israel’s governing coalition have reached “broad agreement” on firing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Sunday.
The statement by Ben-Gvir, chairman of the Otzma Yehudit Party, followed a discussion by coalition party leaders at the Knesset in Jerusalem. Aryeh Deri, the leader of the haredi Sephardic Shas Party, for the first time supported firing Baharav-Miara, Ynet reported.
A second meeting on the issue, set for Monday, was postponed, reportedly amid fears that the gathering at the Prime Minister’s Office would violate a 2020 conflict of interest deal that precludes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from involving himself in legal appointments while his corruption trial is ongoing.
The attorney general’s authority is a major bone of contention in the conflict between the right wing and the left in Israel about the proper extent of the judiciary’s powers.
The attorney general’s powers have been allowed to inflate gradually. Many believe this is without legal grounds, and compromises democratic principles. Others describe the attorney general, who is appointed by the government, as part of the judiciary’s checks and balances on the government.
Several Cabinet ministers and others have accused Baharav-Miara of overstepping her mandate and encroaching on that of elected officials. In November, she told Netanyahu in a letter he should “reevaluate” his position on Ben-Gvir’s tenure as minister. She has refused to represent the government in several court cases, although pleading for the government is part of the legally codified descriptions of her responsibilities.
Baharav-Miara then refused to allow the government to be represented by a third party, including in May at a High Court of Justice hearing about the government’s military conscription policies. She has blocked several promotions and dismissals in the executive branch, including within the police, which is overseen by Ben-Gvir’s ministry.
Firing the attorney general would require receiving a report on this by the Advisory Committee for the Appointment of Senior Civil Service Officials, Justice Minister Yariv Levin said at the meeting, as well as a Cabinet vote.
The discussions about firing Baharav-Miara are part of an apparent resumption of the polarizing conflict, which escalated in January 2023, about the balance of power between elected officials and other civil servants, especially from the judicial branch.
Netanyahu’s current government, which entered into office on Dec. 29, 2022, advanced a judicial reform that aims to place a limit on the judiciary’s powers. This drive, led by Justice Minister Levin, led to a succession of turbulent street protests. The reform was put on hold after Oct. 7, 2023, when the Hamas-led invasion of the northwestern Negev triggered the ongoing regional war.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, ordered Levin to call a vote in the Judicial Selection Committee for a president of the court by Jan. 16.
Levin had sat on the appointment pending negotiations on a compromise that would reflect the preferences of the government. The court’s ruling, Levin wrote in a statement on Sunday, was part of a “takeover of powers from the Knesset and government” that “effectively stripped me of the authority granted to me by law to set the agenda of the Judicial Selection Committee,” he said.
MK Simcha Rothman, chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, in a recent interview said that Baharav-Miara and the court’s ruling were part of the judiciary’s intransigence.
“Everything she does tries to prevent and stop” the government’s work, he said of Baharav-Miara. “We won’t have the judicial system dictate its political agenda to the public in Israel, not even during war time,” he added.
MK Boaz Bismuth, a Likud lawmaker, in an interview with JNS said that the dispute over the Judicial Selection Committee represented the basic disagreement behind the judicial reform controversy.
“The question is, [who has] the last word? Is it the judges or is it the ones who were elected?” Bismuth said. “Lawmakers make bills and judges judge. But when one tries to impose himself on the other, you get this situation that we have.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid Party, in a speech Monday blamed the judicial reform effort for causing the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 6,000 terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and abducted another 250.
“This is what happens when the government weakens the country from within. We haven’t gotten out of it yet, and they’re already dragging us back there,” he said. Lapid added that his party would try to ram through judges’ appointments using its representative on the Judicial Selection Committee.
Lapid has warned in the past that dismissing Baharav-Miara would “lead to chaos.”
This was widely understood as a reference to a constitutional crisis, in which the government does not recognize the authority of the attorney general and the judiciary, and vice versa.
The attorney general has the power to depose the prime minister if she feels the prime minister cannot fulfil his duties, the Supreme Court ruled in January. Many of Netanyahu’s detractors have called on Baharav-Miara to depose him, citing his corruption trial. Netanyahu denies the allegations against him.
The ruling in January was about a law the Knesset passed on March 23, 2023, which stipulates that a three-quarters majority in the Knesset or the Cabinet would be needed to remove a prime minister from office—and only for psychological or other health reasons.
This is in addition to existing laws that bar convicted felons from serving in the position.
The court said the amendment could apply only from the next Knesset onward because it was designed to benefit Netanyahu in connection with his trial.
