Israel’s High Court of Justice unanimously overturned the government’s decision to shut down Army Radio on Thursday evening, ruling that the move was based on an improper and invalid consideration.
Justice Yechiel Kasher, joined by Justices Daphne Barak-Erez and Alex Stein, wrote that the decision was driven by “the dissatisfaction of the decision-makers with the fact that the broadcasts, in their view, contradicted their positions.”
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, Menahem Kahana/AFP)
In a statement summarizing the ruling, the High Court said it was persuaded as a matter of fact that this was the basis for the government’s decision and noted that the government had failed, after a conditional order was issued, to prove otherwise.
At the same time, the court rejected the argument that the government lacked the authority to decide Army Radio’s future or that closing the station would necessarily require primary legislation.
All three justices stressed, each for their own reasons, that they were not ruling out the possibility of shutting down Army Radio in principle, provided such a decision was made lawfully and on relevant grounds.
The justices also made clear that they were not expressing any view on the content of the station’s broadcasts.
In his conclusion, Kasher warned against the use of government power to silence broadcasters whose views displease those in authority.
“It cannot be accepted that a holder of governmental authority should decide that because a broadcaster’s words are not to his liking, the broadcaster’s ‘microphone should be shut down,’” he wrote.
“A government that acts in this way acts in a blatantly undemocratic manner, because the cornerstone on which every democratic government rests is the recognition that the government may not use its power to silence those whose opinions are not to its liking.”