After coalition gov't unanimously votes to fire A-G Baharav-Miara, High Court freezes the dismissal

Following months of conflict between the coalition government and the attorney general, on Monday night the Israeli Cabinet unanimously approved the dismissal of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.

The dismissal was the culmination of an ongoing process that began shortly after the coalition government took office in early 2023 and introduced its Judicial Reform review agenda.

Following the announcement, the Yesh Atid party and the Movement for Quality Government filed a petition with the High Court of Justice, seeking to overturn the dismissal through judicial review.

The High Court subsequently issued a temporary order upholding that the dismissal would not take effect until the judicial review process is completed. The court also barred the government from appointing a new attorney general or altering the working arrangements with Baharav-Miara until a final decision is made.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Knesset to protest the firing of the attorney general. 

Yesh Atid Knesset Member Karine Elharrar – a member of the Constitution Committee who also signed the petition's affidavit – said, “The government doesn't want legal advice, it wants obedience, it chooses to give up the rule of law, and we choose to fight for it and for democracy.” 

Ahead of the vote for her dismissal, Baharav-Miara wrote a letter to the government, stating that the move to dismiss her was illegal while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial for corruption charges. 

"The government is illegally dismissing the attorney general in the prime minister's trial,” she wrote. 

Baharav-Miara also accused Justice Minister Yariv Levin of seeking a legal advisor who would unconditionally approve every government decision.

"The claims raised by the justice minister show that he is looking for a legal advisor who will obey the government and legitimize violations of the law for it, such as refraining from recruiting yeshiva students, political interference in police investigations, and more,” she said, citing examples in her accusation.

The attorney general also explained her decision not to attend the various Cabinet sessions related to her dismissal, stating that the outcome had been predetermined and that her participation would compromise the integrity of the legal advisor’s role.

"While the procedure in its current form is fundamentally invalid and does not conform to the basic rules of administrative law, participating in it in the way it is administered legitimizes the harm to the institution of legal advice to the government and perpetuates the harm to it,” she wrote. 

Within the Israeli government, the attorney general functions as both the chief prosecutor and the chief legal advisor to the government – two roles that are typically separated in most Western democracies.

This means Baharav-Miara is simultaneously responsible for leading the state prosecution in Netanyahu’s corruption trial and for advising the government on the legality of its decisions. In both roles, she has faced repeated criticism from the coalition, which has labeled her “an oppositional attorney general.”

Netanyahu did not participate in the vote due to a conflict of interest stemming from his ongoing trial. However, he has repeatedly criticized Baharav-Miara for what he calls “selective” law enforcement and for taking an adversarial stance toward the coalition government.

The decision to dismiss the attorney general is widely seen as a highly political and controversial move, given the office’s central role in safeguarding the rule of law in Israel. Among the proposed judicial reforms is a plan to divide the role into two separate positions: one serving as chief prosecutor and the other as chief legal advisor to the government.