Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Monday morning announced that next week he would submit the names of three candidates for the post of Attorney General recommended by the Selection Committee, and stated that the candidate he would recommend is attorney Gali Baharav-Miara. The other two candidates are Deputy AG for International Law Roy Sheindorf and attorney Itai Ofir. Another Deputy AG, Raz Nizri, was not recommended by the committee. It should be noted that committee chair, former Supreme Court President Asher Grunis, in 2016 did not support then Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit for the job of AG, citing internal conflicts.
Mandelblit is retiring on Monday and will be replaced temporarily by State Attorney Amit Isman. When a permanent AG is appointed, he or she will serve for six years.
“It is appropriate to appoint a woman to this position for the first time in the history of the country,” Minister Sa’ar said, and added, “But I will propose to appoint attorney Baharav-Miara, not for this reason, but because she is the best, most mature, most worthy candidate and has the richest and most impressive professional and managerial background.”
Baharav-Miara joined the Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office in 1985, where she served for some thirty years in a variety of positions, mainly in civil and administrative law. In 2002, she was appointed director of the administrative department of the District Attorney’s Office, and between 2007 and 2015 served as Tel Aviv District Attorney for Civil cases. In tort cases filed by PA Arabs living in the liberated territories against the state, Baharav-Miara consistently challenged these lawsuits.
In 2018, at the request of the State Attorney’s Office, Baharav-Miara wrote an opinion defending former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and former IAF Chief Amir Eshel against a tort lawsuit filed in a court in the Netherlands by a PA Arab whose family members were killed in the 2014 Gaza war. The Dutch court accepted her opinion and the claim was dismissed.
In May 2019, Baharav-Miara signed a statement against the enactment of an override clause and the extension of the Immunity Law – together with former senior officials in the State Attorney’s Office and the AG’s office.
According to Ynet, Baharav-Miara was considered by Sa’ar as early as the end of last summer. They conducted several conversations in which Sa’ar presented her with his strategic plan to split the role of the AG into legal counsel to the government and the chief law enforcement officer – two roles which all too often present a conflict of interest: the AG in his role as legal counsel would then be in charge of prosecuting government ministers on those very same issues. Outgoing AG Mandelblit has been criticized for his failure to manage both roles, most notably in his handling of the cases against Benjamin Netanyahu.
In their conversations, Sa’ar found support for his idea in his pick for the next AG. The two are now set to begin exploring the possibilities for splitting the office, and in particular to examine the best way to transfer prosecution powers from the Attorney General to the State Attorney.
