Nearly half of ministers have signed letter in support of firing AG, minister reveals

Almost half of the cabinet ministers have signed a letter demanding that Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara be fired, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi (Likud) said Thursday.

Fourteen of the government’s 33 ministers have already signed the letter, he told Radio Kol Hai.

If more than half of the cabinet ministers sign the letter, cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs must take steps to advance the proposal, Karhi’s spokesperson said.

Among the attorney-general’s responsibilities are providing legal advice to the government, representing the government in petitions against it in the High Court of Justice, and overseeing the state prosecution apparatus. Since the current government’s inception in December 2022, Baharav-Miara has deemed many government initiatives “not legally viable.”

A notable example of this has been her opposition to government initiatives to extend the exemption of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men from IDF service, despite a High Court ruling in June that the exemption was illegal.

Karhi and other ministers and MKs have argued that she was intentionally tripping up the government in an effort to topple it. In response, opposition MKs have said if the government would cease attempting to push through illegal measures, she would not need to intervene.

The attorney-general’s legal opinions were binding, the High Court wrote in multiple rulings, including earlier this year. The government has increasingly ignored her opinions, however, and it has approved measures she deemed not legally viable.

Netanyahu urges Justice Minister to 'propose a solution'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot take part in the effort to fire Baharav-Miara. He is bound by a conflict-of-interest agreement in connection to his ongoing criminal trials.

Netanyahu was quoted in a government meeting earlier this month as saying Baharav-Miara was being a contrarian, and he asked Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) to propose a solution.

The Prime Minister’s Office issued a clarification soon after, saying Netanyahu respected his conflict-of-interest agreement and was merely responding to ministers’ complaints.

Karhi initiated the letter and said he intends to present it to Levin and Fuchs if he obtains a majority in the government. The letter is titled “Complete Lack of Trust between the Government and its ministers and the Attorney-General.”

The letter says: “The attorney-general, who is supposed to serve as a professional tool to assist the government, has de facto become an Achilles’ heel that prevents the government from acting according to its policies and realizing the wishes of its voters. This is an antidemocratic trampling of the principle of the rule of the people as it was expressed in the last election, and it is a clear recipe to paralyze the government’s actions.”

Some ministers were afraid to sign the letter despite their agreement in principle to its content, Karhi said Thursday. He did not say who had signed the letter.