Ministers voted unanimously Sunday to remove Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara from office, escalating a legal and political standoff that is expected to reach the full cabinet for a vote next week.
The vote followed a recommendation issued last week by a special ministerial committee, which cited what it called “fundamental and ongoing disagreements” with the attorney general that it said prevented effective cooperation between her and the government.
Baharav-Miara has denounced the proceedings as unlawful and warned of long-term institutional damage. In a written response Sunday, she urged Israel’s High Court of Justice to intervene before the process moves forward.
“The court is requested to bring the decision under judicial review as soon as possible and to prevent the government from advancing this illegal process before it rules on the fundamental question of whether the rules governing the dismissal of an attorney general may be changed,” she wrote.
She said the government has spent the past five weeks “advancing, step by step, a blatantly illegal process to terminate the tenure of the attorney general,” adding that the move has caused “growing institutional harm to the Attorney General’s Office and the civil service as a whole.”
“Even if the process and its outcome are eventually invalidated, its very advancement — including a government debate based on a flawed decision — lends legitimacy to an illegitimate act,” she wrote.
Baharav-Miara accused the government of acting without legal boundaries to achieve political goals. “The government is changing the rules mid-process to suit its immediate needs — acting without any consistent framework,” she said. “Such conduct undermines the independence of the civil service and inflicts immediate and cumulative harm on oversight institutions.”
She called the ministers’ vote a final administrative act to permanently change the rules governing the dismissal of an attorney general. “The decision causes immediate and ongoing harm and must be subject to judicial review immediately — regardless of whether it is implemented,” she wrote.
Protests calling to stop the removal of the attorney genral
(Video: Gil Yohanan)
The attorney general did not attend two hearings held by the ministerial committee, calling the proceedings a legal “ambush” and asserting that the outcome had been predetermined. In a previous statement, she accused the government of attempting to create a precedent that would allow it to dismiss future attorneys general for political reasons.
Ministers on the committee said they were “not convinced” by Baharav-Miara’s refusal to participate in the hearings and described it as a lack of cooperation. The committee is headed by Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli.
Following the committee’s recommendation last week, petitions were filed with the High Court seeking a temporary injunction to halt the process. The petitioners asked the court to block any government decision until it rules on whether the government had the legal authority to change the procedures for dismissing an attorney general.
Deputy Supreme Court President Justice Noam Sohlberg rejected the request for an interim injunction but ruled Friday that any cabinet decision to dismiss Baharav-Miara would not take immediate effect. He said the court must be given “sufficient time for judicial review” before such a move can be implemented.
Baharav-Miara was appointed attorney general in 2022. Her dismissal would mark the first time in Israeli history that a sitting attorney general was removed by the government.
Protests against the dismissal were held outside the Justice Ministry and the Tel Aviv District Court in recent days. Opponents of the move warn it could politicize the role of attorney general and weaken legal oversight of the government.