Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that he cannot participate in his government’s efforts to radically reform the legal and judicial system due to a conflict of interest over his ongoing corruption case.
The statement drew a sharp reaction from Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who himself accused Baharav-Miara of having a conflict of interest because she opposed the reforms.
Her warning follows a petition filed by the movement for quality government in Israel with the Supreme Court last month, demanding that the attorney general draft an updated conflict of interest agreement for Netanyahu after he took office again in January has.
“In your role as prime minister, you must refrain from initiatives affecting the legal system in the context of ‘legal reform,'” Baharav-Miara wrote in a letter published on Thursday.
“This is due to reasonable suspicions of a conflict of interest between issues relating to the legal proceedings against you and the set of legislative initiatives and their substantive elements,” which the government is pushing forward in its legislative reform package, she continued.
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“This includes any direct or indirect action or direction by others, including the involvement of officials serving as political officers in your office,” the attorney general added.
Legal overhauls proposed by the government include legislation that would give the government an automatic majority on the committee that selects judges for all courts in the country, including the Supreme Court.
The Chairman of the Knesset’s Constitutional, Legal and Judiciary Committee, MK Simcha Rothman, along with Legal Counsel to Committee Attorney Gur Bligh, will chair a committee hearing on his sweeping legal reform agenda on February 1, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Should Netanyahu be convicted of corruption charges in the trial he is currently undergoing in the Jerusalem District Court, he could appeal the conviction to the Supreme Court, where his government is likely to make appointments during its tenure.
The prime minister said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that he was willing to hear “counter-offers” to the sweeping legislative reform package his government is proposing, implying he has a hand in formulating and advancing the reforms.
Welcoming the Attorney General’s warning to Netanyahu, the Movement for Quality Government said the prime minister should “immediately withdraw his hands from the destruction of Israel’s legal and democratic system.”
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Levin, the justice minister, slammed Baharav-Miara’s letter and accused her of having a conflict of interest.
He pointed out that some of the proposed reforms would affect the position of the Attorney General and the government’s legal advisers in general.
“It seems that a conflict of interest is a very strange thing. An elected official is forbidden from speaking about legal advice reforms, but the attorney general and his staff are allowed to block reforms that directly affect their powers,” Levin said.
In January, Baharav-Miara submitted an advisory to the High Court, stating that a conflict of interest agreement drafted for Netanyahu by her predecessor Avichai Mandelblit in 2020 was still in force.
Under the agreement, Netanyahu must not be involved in matters affecting witnesses or other defendants in his trial, or in any law that would affect the judicial process against him.
Nor can he intervene in matters concerning the status of several senior police and prosecutor’s offices, in several areas under the responsibility of the Ministry of Communications, or in the Judiciary Selection Committee.
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