Netanyahu's government defies Supreme Court over media regulation

JerusalemIsrael has taken an unprecedented step in its institutional history. The government has announced that it will not obey a Supreme Court ruling that allows the Council of the Second Authority for Television and Radio, the regulatory body for private television and radio channels, to resume its activity. A decision that has reopened the tug-of-war between the executive and the judiciary with only a few months left until the elections in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is playing for his future.

At the proposal of the Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, and the Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, the executive has assured that it will use all legal tools at its disposal to reverse the Supreme Court's decision and that it will not recognize as valid any agreement adopted by this regulatory body as long as it continues to operate without the minimum members required by the 1990 law that governs it.

The dispute originates in an apparently technical conflict over the composition of this body, which has among its competences intervening in business operations such as the purchase of Channel 13, one of the country's main television channels, by a group of investors critical of Benjamin Netanyahu's government. The controversy began in March, with several controversial appointments to the regulatory body, including that of Yifat Ben Hai Segev as president of the body. Ben Hai Segev had been a prosecution witness in the corruption trial against Netanyahu, although in 2022 she modified her judicial declaration in favor of the prime minister.

Political control of the media

In this context, the Union of Journalists of Israel, the Movement for a Quality Government, and several organizations appealed the appointments before the Supreme Court, arguing that they responded to an attempt by the government to exercise political control over the media. In May, the Supreme Court suspended the activity of the broadcasting authority and, shortly thereafter, six of the fifteen members resigned almost consecutively. According to various Israeli media, these resignations were, in part, the result of strong pressure from Minister Karhi and left the body without the minimum quorum to function. In turn, the decision on the sale of Channel 13 was paralyzed.

Faced with this situation, the Supreme Court ruled in June that the broadcasting authority could resume activity despite the lack of a quorum, considering that the resignations had been deliberately coordinated to block the functioning of the body and the fulfillment of its orders.

“Red line”

The government's statements have provoked an immediate reaction from the main state institutions and the opposition. The President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, has launched an unusually strong criticism against the government and has said that disobeying a judicial ruling is "a red line that cannot be crossed under any circumstances," warning that these positions threaten the country's cohesion.

The main opposition leaders have also accused the executive of causing a constitutional crisis and deliberately weakening the rule of law. The opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has stated that a government that rejects the Supreme Court's decisions "automatically becomes an illegal government," while his election partner and former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, has warned that this drift could lead "to anarchy in the streets and the collapse of the State".

The leader of the Democrats, Yair Golan, has gone further and suggested that Netanyahu's coalition would be normalizing the rejection of judicial decisions in order to ultimately question an unfavorable electoral result. "This government knows it has no chance of winning elections and, therefore, it is waging war against the rule of law. It is a criminal government that has no red lines," he wrote on his X account.