Baharav-Miara’s efforts to turn her own political preferences into law binding on the government
PHOTO: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90
Before Pesach, we published two articles related to Israel’s attorney general. The first dealt with how former High Court president Aharon Barak invented vast powers to check the government out of whole judicial cloth and invested them in the attorney general, with no statutory basis; and with the judicial philosophy underpinning Barak’s “constitutional revolution.”
The second examined the handling of the government’s desire to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar by the current attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara. We placed her efforts on Bar’s behalf in the context of efforts by her predecessors to use the powers conferred by the High Court to protect the government legal establishment.
In this third and final segment, we will explain how Baharav-Miara’s efforts to shackle the government have been so oppressive that the government eventually decided it had no choice but to take the unprecedented step of firing her if it hoped to function at all. Rather than serve as the legal advisor of the government — her official job title — Baharav-Miara has adopted a thoroughly adversarial stance to the government.
Among the complaints in an 800-page report on her tenure compiled by Justice Minister Yariv Levin is that she has treated left-wing demonstrators with kid gloves compared to those from the right-wing. At the time of the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, 700 indictments were filed against anti-withdrawal protestors. The pre–October 7 anti-Netanyahu protests repeatedly blocked Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway, yet they resulted in only four indictments.
Create a free account to keep reading.
