High Court ruling keeps Postal Company chairman in office

The High Court of Justice upheld a petition on Thursday to restore Israel Postal Company chairman Mishael Vaknin, after Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem fired him from his post in July. 

The ministers said that Vaknin “was not fulfilling his role appropriately,” but the move was suspected to be politically motivated at the time, leading Michal Rosenbaum, then-Government Companies Authority director, to resign in protest, and in September the High Court issued an injunction preventing Vaknin’s dismissal.  

Responding to the decision, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi accused the court of overstepping its bounds and inviting dysfunction in the postal service: “This ruling of the High Court, which takes the authority out of the hands of elected officials but leaves them with the responsibility, is a fundamental violation going down to the root of the democratic system in the State of Israel.” 

Decision shows importance of reasonableness doctrine, says NGO 

The Movement for Quality of Government in Israel welcomed the decision, saying in a statement that “the ruling illustrates the importance of the reasonableness standard as an essential tool for judicial review."

The reasonableness standard is a common law doctrine that allows courts to engage in judicial review of administrative decisions, including dismissals of ministers, when it deems those decisions beyond what a reasonable and responsible authority would undertake.

The government succeeded last summer in passing a law to repeal the doctrine, its first victory in a months-long attempt to reform the country’s judicial system, but the High Court nullified the repeal in January, restoring the doctrine.

Matan Wasserman and Michael Starr contributed to this report.