In its sitting on Wednesday, the Knesset Plenum voted to approve in preliminary reading the Independence, Status and Powers of the Legal Advisor of a Government Ministry Bill, 2025, sponsored by MK Avichay Buaron (Likud). In the vote, 58 Members of Knesset supported the bill, versus 50 who opposed it, and it will be turned over to the House Committee to determine the committee in which the bill will be deliberated.
It is proposed to establish an arrangement on the subordination and independent discretion of legal advisors of government ministries. The bill proposes that the legal advisor of a government ministry will be subordinated to the ministry’s director general, and not to the Attorney General; the opinion of the legal advisor of a government ministry will be binding for all workers of that ministry; the ministries’ legal advisors will serve as the exclusive authority for determining the ministry’s position in legal proceedings and will be in charge of drafting memorandums of law as directed by the minister.
MK Buaron: “This bill is not an attack on the Attorney General’s Office, it is an attempt to save it. For many years, a dangerous distortion evolved in Israel. The Attorney General ceased to be an advisor that protects and paves the way of the decision-maker, but [became] more and more the policymaker. For example, the legal advisor of the Ministry of Defense gave an opinion that Army Radio (Galei Tzahal) could be closed down. The Attorney General came along and contradicted her opinion. How can we have productive legal counsel within the ministries, when the [advisor’s] opinion is trampled by the Attorney General?”
Minister of Justice MK Yariv Levin (Likud): “This bill is conceptually correct, and is vital to the work of the Government. It is correct professionally and also in terms of the status of the legal advisors of the government ministries. It will provide a solution to the unreasonable situation that is currently taking place, and it will give a correct structure for the future, even when other people will sit in the Attorney General’s Office who will do their job and not other things.”
The explanatory notes to the bill state: “The purpose of the bill is to strengthen the status and the independence of the legal advisors of the government ministries. The legal advisors are those who have the greatest legal expertise in the affairs of the ministry in which they serve, and accordingly they should be independent in the pursuit of their duties, so that they will be able to advise and act independently in keeping with their professional judgment. Strengthening their status will lead to increasing the legal certainty within the ministry, and to improving the quality of the legal and administrative decision-making.”
Related Topics
