Israeli media: Government legal adviser calls for Ben Gvir’s dismissal
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The Israeli government’s legal adviser, Gali Baharav-Miara, on Thursday evening asked Israel’s Supreme Court to issue a conditional order requiring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to explain why he has not dismissed Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
In her request, Baharav-Miara said that “Minister Ben Gvir is abusing his position to improperly influence the activities of the Israeli police in some of the most sensitive areas of law enforcement and investigations, thereby violating basic democratic principles”.
Shortly afterwards, Minister Ben Gvir responded to the Attorney General’s letter by saying: “You are not taken into account!”
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In her letter, the Attorney General’s claimed that “Minister Ben Gvir is working systematically to undermine the independence of the police in every possible way, using his broad authority and exerting unlawful influence – direct and indirect – over the use of force and operational decisions in specific incidents, including in highly sensitive matters”.
She added that she had reached an agreement with the minister, but that he had breached it, saying: “The minister is acting unlawfully and in violation of the explicit court rulings issued in his case.”
Baharav-Miara concluded: “At this stage, there is no choice but to conclude that the public cannot be protected from systematic conduct that harms the independence of the police. As stated, this threatens its nature as a non-political state body, with serious consequences for the protection of human rights and the rule of law. This situation results in a real violation of basic democratic values.”
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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
