Israel’s Supreme Court froze Justice Minister Amir Ohana’s appointment for interim state prosecutor minutes before she was slated to be sworn in at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.
The Movement for Quality Government filed a petition at 8:32 a.m. with the Supreme court to block Ohana’s appointment of Orli Ben-Ari Ginzburg to replace Shai Nitzan as the state prosecutor. The Movement for Quality Government stated in its petition that there is “serious concern” of Ohana using the appointment to interfere with the law enforcement system’s indictments against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Ohana announced his appointment on Tuesday morning, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit publicly stated his opposition on Tuesday afternoon and Ohana announced he was scheduling a swearing-in ceremony for Wednesday morning despite the AG’s opposition on Tuesday evening.
Mandelblit and Civil Service Commissioner Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz both objected to the appointment of Ben-Ari Ginzburg on the grounds that she is not senior enough for the position.
Supreme Court Justice Menachem Mazuz gave Ohana, Mandelblit and Hershkowitz 10 days to respond to the petition.
Ohana spoke at outgoing State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan’s farewell ceremony at the Justice Ministry on Wednesday, saying that the Supreme Court’s decision was unfortunate but he would not turn the farewell ceremony into a battleground. However, he added that he believes that Ben-Ari Ginzburg’s appointment will ultimately be approved.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
Does anyone know if there are specific “experience” requirements for the job or is the sufficiency of a candidate’s “experience” purely a subjective political decision?
It’s seniority in the career civil service. This is part of the judicial dictatorship in Israel, which the next government MUST overthrow. It’s contrary to every principle of democracy that an elected government is unable to choose its own lawyers and functionaries who support its agenda. No matter whom the people elect, they must make every important appointment from a short list of three civil servants that is submitted to them by the civil service itself, all of whom are guaranteed to be leftists, and then it must OBEY those people’s orders, rather than the other way around. That is how Mandelblit got his position, as effective dictator of Israel.