It was a stormy day in the Knesset Law Committee on Monday, 12 Tammuz as Justice Minister (Bayit Yehudi) Ayelet Shaked works to pass her bill to change the process by which legal advisors of ministries are appointed. Shaked feels the ministers should play a more active role in deciding on who the legal advisor should be. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit could not disagree more, warning this would harm the rule of law.

This change will increase the influence of ministers on the appointment of a ministry’s legal advisor, which has aroused the wrath of many jurists such as former attorney general and retired Supreme Court Justice Yitzhak Zamir, who claimed that “this proposal seriously threatens the rule of law in the country.”

At present, a legal advisor is hired via a tender, without any involvement of the minister. Shaked feels there should be a search committee and the minister would have a say. She explains the appointment would have to be approved by both the minister and attorney general.

She feels this is essential towards having legal experts serving a minister who would enforce the hashkafa of the current minister rather than his own, referring to the legal advisor. She feels it is absurd that a legal advisor may have an opinion which differs from the minister and push his own agenda rather than that of the serving minister. To deliver her point, she explains the committee which she appointed has appointed 250 justices to the nation’s courts, pointing out they remain loyal to the law, not her, and this would be the same with legal advisors.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)