A bill sponsored by MK (Yahadut HaTorah) Moshe Gafne is eliciting sharp criticism from the judicial community.

The bill gives a cabinet minister the authority to dismiss the ministry’s legal counsel in the event of major disagreement, as well as limiting the legal advisor’s authority and tenure to six years. If passed, any legal advisor already working for six years must leave within a year unless the minister decides otherwise. The bill intends to give a minister total authority in cases of dispute, a move that retired Justice Yitzchak Zamir warns will remove the “keepers of the gate”, the last line of defense between operating legally and outside the framework of the law.

Similar objections are being heard from the Israel Bar Association which was approved by the Ministerial Law Committee, now awaiting a preliminary reading in Knesset on Wednesday.

Today, the legal advisors in ministries are responsible to the attorney general. The Justice Ministry has also expressed opposition to numerous paragraphs of the Gafne bill.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)