Fears of pressure from the Attorney General on the Mahash committee spark a political storm

A political storm has erupted following a report on C14 that the identities of members of the search committee for the head of Mahash are being kept secret due to fears of persecution by the Attorney General. It is reported that Gali Baharav-Miara is attempting to pressure members to resign to thwart the appointment of a new Mahash head under the recently passed law, despite the High Court of Justice not issuing any freeze on the process.

Chairman of the Constitution Committee, MK Simcha Rothman, stated:

"Gali Baharav-Miara is operating the 'rule of law gang' with violence and force, but it will not help her. The Mahash law that I passed in the committee I chair breaks her powerful monopoly, and the splitting law will lead to the next government being completely freed from her stranglehold. These corrective steps must be continued until Israel returns to being a democracy."

MK Avichai Boaron also commented:

"Look at the situation we have reached. Matti Tuchfeld publishes this evening that a member of the search committee is going underground for fear that Attorney General Baharav-Miara or her people will harm him. How did we reach this situation where a citizen is afraid of the State Attorney's Office and the heads of the law enforcement system just because he wants to fulfill a civic task assigned to him?! Why are the Attorney General's people chasing the committee members? These forceful phenomena are taken from criminal worlds. The duty to fix the system becomes more acute every day."

The initiator of the Mahash law, MK Moshe Saada, added:

"Conduct of a crime family in full. Any moment now we will have to put the members of the committee to select a new head of Mahash into a witness protection program, because of the terror that the criminals in the service of the law led by Gali and Gil Limon are inflicting on them. Gali, realize — it's over. And all the tricks and all the improper pressures and threats will not help you. Very soon you will be investigated and you will answer for all your deeds, along with all your other partners in covering up the Military Advocate General affair and persecuting right-wing figures, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu."

As previously reported, although the law to establish Mahash as a body separate from the State Attorney's Office was approved in a final reading in the Knesset, and despite petitions filed against its establishment in the High Court of Justice failing to secure an interim order, officials in the Ministry of Justice are forced to keep the members of the search committee secret. This is based on information that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and her associates are concentrating efforts to locate committee members to convince them to resign.

The goal of this witch hunt is to exert aggressive pressure on those selected for the position, threatening and intimidating them to prevent the establishment of the department and the appointment of the next Mahash director.

Sources involved in the matter stated:

"This is an absolutely crazy event. Senior officials in the Ministry of Justice need to protect the members of the search committee from the Attorney General and her associates, even though the law explicitly states that she or the State Attorney cannot have any foothold in the new Mahash, she has no involvement in the process, and even the High Court of Justice did not come to her aid and did not issue an interim order to freeze the law."

They further noted that these events only strengthen the need for an independent Mahash, as determined by the State Comptroller in a special report, which highlighted a built-in conflict of interest in a reality where Mahash is part of the State Attorney's Office.