The High Court of Justice ruled unanimously 7-0 on Sunday to annul the government’s decision to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, asserting that the government had failed to provide legal justification for its decision to change the way an AG is fired, and determining that the new system it designed was fundamentally flawed.

The government’s decision earlier this year to change the way an attorney general is fired was approved “hastily” and “without an appropriate factual or legal basis, without consulting professional bodies, and without considering other alternatives,” the court ruled.

The ruling, authored by Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, stated explicitly that Baharav-Miara remains the attorney general and retains her authority, and that any action taken to change her status or powers would violate the decision — a stipulation that anticipated threats or actions by the government and its ministers to defy the ruling.

Indeed, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi swiftly called for the government to ignore the decision, a step that would precipitate a severe constitutional crisis.

Amit’s ruling was supported by the six other justices on the panel, including four conservatives, among them the court’s two most trenchant ones — Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg and Justice David Mintz.

Opposition members welcomed the ruling as one upholding the rule of law.

The government’s decision in August to fire Baharav-Miara was hugely controversial because of how it changed the way an attorney general is fired, shifting the decision from the recommendation of a public, professional committee to the recommendation of an entirely political committee staffed only by government ministers.

Critics of the government argued that Baharav-Miara was fired simply for repeatedly pointing out that the government was acting in violation of the law, and that the government had designed a political process to facilitate her dismissal on political, not professional, grounds.

The government argued in response that it was entitled to change........

© The Times of Israel