The legal confrontation between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office over the appointment of Roman Gofman as the Mossad chief reached a boiling point after Gali Baharav-Miara submitted a classified affidavit to the High Court as part of her obsessive quest to thwart Gofman’s appointment.
Adv. Harel Arnon, representing Netanyahu and the state, filed a sharply worded response to the court, attacking Baharav-Miara for her scandulous conduct and extreme violation of accepted legal procedures.
“The freedom the Attorney General takes upon herself to prevent the Prime Minister of Israel and his legal representatives from reviewing materials deemed ‘classified’ is both inconceivable and scandalous,” Arnon wrote.
“There is no classified material in the State of Israel that someone is authorized to see while the prime minister is barred from seeing it.”
The response further noted that the affidavit was submitted “in a sealed envelope, ex parte,” after court office hours and in violation of the deadlines previously set by the court.
Arnon accused the Attorney General of “procedural audacity of the highest order,” saying that she is attempting to submit materials that were never presented to the advisory committee and that she had previously sought to submit but was denied in an attempt to “drag out the proceedings endlessly.”
The defense team for Respondents 1–2 also criticized the Attorney General’s disregard for the judiciary. “The conduct of the Attorney General in these proceedings is astonishing,” the response states. “She allows herself to do whatever she wishes in order to thwart the appointment under discussion, the normal rules of procedure, and what remains of public trust.”
It should be noted that Prof. Talia Einhorn, a member of the advisory committee for senior appointments, publicly posted her support of Gofman’s appointment and slammed Baharav-Miara for her intervention, saying that the material that the committee reviewed proved Gofman’s integrity, and in a barb aimed at Baharav Miara, wrote: “From what emerged during and after the High Court hearing, it appears that serious flaws in the integrity of others were revealed, while Gofman’s integrity remains intact.”
(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)