A High Court decision to cancel the government’s decision to fire Shin Bet head Ronen Bar would expropriate its “authority, duty, and responsibility as the executive branch for the security of the state of Israel and its citizens,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued in a court filing on Monday.
The filing was a joint response by Netanyahu and the government as a whole, represented by Adv. Zion Amir, to a demand by the petitioners that the court issue an interim injunction to block the firing. The court issued a temporary injunction on Friday so as not to create an “irrevocable” situation if the government moves forward to appoint a new Shin Bet head.
According to the prime minister and the government, the authority to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet lay solely with the government, according to the law. The government unanimously decided to dismiss Bar, and since the government's responsibility for the Shin Bet is part of its responsibility for the state's security, the issue was non-justiciable.
The PM also argued that the petitioners, which included a series of NGOs, political parties, and private citizens, were not directly affected by the decision and therefore did not have a right to appear in a court. Bar himself, the affected party, did not appeal the decision in court, the PM pointed out.
The PM also quoted then-Deputy Attorney General Meni Mazuz as saying during preparation of the Shin Bet Law that "a head of service cannot serve if he does not enjoy the government's trust.” It was therefore “impossible to force the Prime Minister and the government to continue working with a head of the Shin Bet who does not enjoy their trust,” the prime minister argued.
'No basis for the claim'
The prime minister also argued that there was “no basis” for the claim that the decision to remove Bar was related to investigations into ties between Qatar and three of Netanyahu’s current or previous advisors. According to the prime minister, the “chronological order” of events proved that the Qatar investigation came after it had already been made clear that Bar would be fired after presenting the results of an internal investigation into the Shin Bet’s failure to block the Hamas October 7 massacre.
Finally, the prime minister argued that a letter from Bar in which he accused the prime minister of firing him on “absurd allegations” and for “non-professional reasons” served effectively as a resignation letter.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara approved the PM and government private representation, due to the fact that she believed that the firing of Bar had been illegal.
In a filing of their own, attorneys from the State Attorney’s Office, who answer to the Attorney General, requested more time to file their positions on the interim injunction due to the “complexity, precedential, and importance” of the matter.
The attorneys stated that they needed to examine the government’s considerations, as well as the question of whether or not the prime minister was not authorized to bring the decision forward due to a conflict of interest.
However, the attorneys wrote that already at this point, it was clear that the firing process had included fundamental procedural flaws, as it did not meet basic administrative standards of facts, the lack of an arraignment, and the potential conflict of interest.
In addition, the implications of the firing “go far beyond the personal matter of the head of the Shin Bet; the decision has a broad and long-term impact on the perception of the roles of senior officials in the civil service and security bodies who exercise powers under the law, including powers that are particularly harmful,” the attorneys wrote.
They requested that the court leave the temporary injunction in place, and that they receive permission to issue their opinion regarding the interim injunction and the petition itself at the same time, ahead of the court hearing set for April 8.