Ministerial committee votes unanimously to dismiss AG Baharav-Miara

A ministerial committee unanimously voted to recommend that the government dismiss Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Sunday. 

The committee's decision was made Sunday morning, after Baharav-Miara sent a letter to the High Court of Justice asking it to prevent her dismissal. However, the text of the resolution to dismiss the attorney general was decided in a meeting of the committee last Thursday. 

In her letter, Baharav-Miara asked the court not to let the government vote to dismiss her without first deciding whether the change in the dismissal procedure that the government approved is legal. 

"This is a government decision that is a final administrative decision, to permanently change the law regarding the transfer of a Legal Advisor to the Government from its position, a decision that causes immediate damage and that it is appropriate to bring it to judicial review immediately, regardless of the manner of its implementation," Baharav-Miara wrote to the court. 

In Israel, the attorney general fills the role of chief legal advisor to the government as well as heading the inspector general for investigating the government. In most Western democracies, those offices are separated. 

“Therefore, the court is requested to bring it to judicial review, as early as possible, and at the same time not to allow the government to continue and advance this illegal move to a government debate before the court's ruling on the fundamental question regarding the legality of changing the rules for removing the Attorney General,” she argued. 

Following the decision of the ministerial committee, the cabinet can now schedule a vote on the dismissal in its next meeting. 

On Friday, High Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, considered a conservative judge, said that a decision to fire Baharav-Miara would not come into effect immediately, as the high court needs time to hear petitions against the new dismissal procedure, which the government only instituted in June.  

In her letter to the court, the attorney general argued that by changing the process of firing the attorney general in the way it had, the government is causing “institutional damage” to the legal advisory position. 

“The situation in which for the past five weeks the government has been advancing, step by step, a clearly illegal process of terminating the term of office of the legal advisor to the government, is leading to increasing institutional damage to the institution of the legal advisor to the government and to the entire public service,” she wrote. 

She also accused the government of changing the rules which govern its own behavior “on the fly,” to see suit “momentary needs.” She said such behavior “undermines the guarantees for the independence and statehood of the entire public service, and of the gatekeepers and their ability to stand firm in particular, and is causing immediate and cumulative damage.” 

Last Thursday, the ministerial committee, which includes ministers Amichai Shikli, Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Michael Malchieli, and Gila Gamliel, announced that "due to substantial and prolonged differences of opinion," it was recommending the dismissal of the attorney general. Attorney General Baharav-Miara refused to attend the hearings held regarding her dismissal, believing that the process was illegal from the start. 

The move to dismiss the attorney general has been an ongoing process. In March, the cabinet voted unanimously to declare it had “no confidence” in Baharav-Miara, and accused her of creating a rift in relations between her office and the government. In June, the government approved a new procedure for dismissing the attorney general through the creation of the ministerial committee which conducted the vote to dismiss her on Sunday morning. 

The Movement for Quality Government responded to the ministerial committee’s decision with a statement accusing the committee of working protect Netanyahu in his corruption trials.  

"The committee's recommendation is a predetermined result of an invalid process conducted without a real hearing by a political committee,” the statement said. “A committee that consists of coalition ministers, loyal to a prime minister accused of corruption and a government in which an unprecedented number of ministers are being investigated for criminal offenses, which is called a 'ministerial committee' but in fact serves as Netanyahu's long arm, cannot serve as a legal body to remove the country's most senior gatekeeper.” 

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial testimony was set to continue this week, however, after Netanyahu was diagnosed with food poisoning earlier on Sunday, it is believed that his scheduled testimony will be moved.