Attorney Dr. Eliad Shraga, Chairman of the Movement: “A government that determines for itself what is legal is a government that is above the law. We petitioned the High Court of Justice to stop this”
The Movement for Quality Government has now filed a petition with the High Court of Justice demanding the cancellation of the Attorney General Law, which was approved by the Knesset plenum. This is the third petition the Movement has filed in the past week against the coalition’s legislative blitz, after the petitions against the Basic Law: Torah Study and against the law to freeze the arrests of draft dodgers.
The Movement explains in the petition that the law allows the government to decide that the opinion of the Attorney General does not oblige it to exempt additional elements of the executive branch from it; to determine the state’s position in the courts itself; to hire private lawyers and even to block the attorney general from appearing at hearings and presenting the full picture to the judges. In addition, the law subjects the attorney general to close supervision by the Minister of Justice, and requires the government to make a decision within 30 days of the law’s entry into force on the manner in which the attorney general is appointed and dismissed, in a manner that could allow the government to control the appointment and termination of the attorney general’s term.
The Movement claims that the law neutralizes the central gatekeeper of the rule of law in Israel, and its practical meaning is that the government will interpret the law applicable to it for itself, contrary to the fundamental principle according to which everyone is subject to the law. The petition also warns of a direct danger to the independence of the law enforcement system: the law ostensibly excludes the “field of criminal law” from government intervention, but refrains from defining what is included in it, so that particularly sensitive areas, such as the use of police force against demonstrators, may remain exposed to political interference. In addition, it is claimed that the law seriously violates constitutional human rights, including the right to human dignity and the right to a fair trial, since preventing the Attorney General from appearing in proceedings may lead to a situation in which a person facing state authorities in court will find an authority that does not bring to the court all the information relevant to the decision in the proceedings.
The Movement for Quality Government emphasizes that the role of the Attorney General was designed to replace the state as an entity acting in a manner that Independent and apolitical. The law clearly contradicts these principles and thus removes a central oversight mechanism for the legality of the government’s actions.
Attorney Dr. Eliad Shraga, Chairman of the Movement for Quality Government: “Since the establishment of the state, a single institution has been built in Israel whose job it is to tell the government the truth – what is legal and what is not. Now, in the final days of a government that has lost the public’s trust, the gatekeeper is being turned into a factor whose position can be completely ignored, and the government is being turned into an interpreter of the law for itself. A government that interprets the law for itself is a government that is above the law, and above it there is no one to protect the citizen. We have petitioned the High Court of Justice and will stand at the gate – until this law is repealed.”