Minister insists PM will obey High Court ruling, isn’t seeking constitutional crisis

Miki Zohar says government resolution aimed at avoiding crisis, court violated law; Bennett says ignoring ruling will cause chaos similar to that which sparked 2,000 years of exile

Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar on Monday disputed the claim that the government’s resolution a day earlier amounts to a declaration of intent to ignore a ruling from the High Court of Justice, insisting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not intend to go down the “slippery slope” of a constitutional crisis.

“As I know him, the prime minister will comply with the High Court’s decision; there won’t be a constitutional crisis here,” Zohar, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud, told the Kan public broadcaster. “In my opinion, a constitutional crisis is the beginning of a slippery slope.”

He claimed that the government resolution rejecting the High Court ruling on the operations of the Council of the Second Authority, the commercial broadcasting regulatory body, “did not create a constitutional crisis — but sought to prevent one.”

In a declaration issued by the cabinet on Sunday, the government vowed not to respect the High Court’s decision in June to enable the Council of the Second Authority, the commercial broadcasting regulatory body, to resume operations despite lacking a two-thirds quorum of members.

Using wording proposed by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the government stated that it would not recognize any decisions made by the council in its current status.

The government argued that the court order violates one of the provisions of the 1990 law for the Second Authority, and said “the government has determined that the rule of law obligates all governmental authorities, including the court,” and that “a ruling that directly contradicts the clear language of the law cannot confer authority that does not exist under the law.”

“We told the High Court that its behavior was against the law,” Zohar insisted on Monday. “We must obey the High Court’s decisions, but we are saying that we are on the verge of a constitutional crisis.”

The declaration was denounced by the opposition, while President Isaac Herzog said disobeying High Court rulings would cross “a red line.”

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who leads the Together party, said on Monday that if the government ignores the High Court decision, “every citizen is forced to ask themself, who do I obey?”

The government? The court? And when there is not a single answer, there is no single country. There is anarchy. Chaos,” he wrote on X.

“It already happened to us twice, and twice it caused destruction. And on the second time we copped 2,000 years of exile, pogroms, persecution, and a terrible Holocaust,” Bennett said.

Retired Supreme Court justice Hanan Melcer, who serves as president of the Israel Press Council, also slammed the government’s declaration, saying it put Israel in a position “reminiscent of the eve of October 7,” when the coalition’s controversial judicial overhaul legislation sparked deep divisions among the Israeli public and regular, mass nationwide protests.

Speaking to Kan, Melcer said that the government resolution “crossed a red line” as it effectively “states that they don’t recognize the decisions of the High Court of Justice.”

“This is an attack on democracy,” warned the retired judge.

“Then, as now, someone broke out with the idea of a coup d’état and the abolition of judicial independence,” he said, comparing the moment to the crisis set off by the proposed judicial overhaul. “Our enemies heard, saw, and acted on it. I’m warning that, at least in my opinion, we’re in a very similar situation.”

The fight over the membership of the Second Authority’s council centers around a proposed buyout of Channel 13 by a group of high-tech entrepreneurs, headed by a prominent critic of the government, which the council must approve.

Organizations that petitioned the High Court against the government alleged that Karhi and the government tried to assert political control over the council to thwart the buyout. And the court itself, in an interim order in May, all but accused Karhi of unlawfully exerting influence over the council in an effort to hinder its operations and, by extension, the Channel 13 acquisition.

In disobeying the High Court, the government could create a constitutional crisis if the Council of the Second Authority makes decisions that the court would consider valid but that the government rejects.

The struggle over the Second Authority comes against the backdrop of Karhi’s persistent efforts over the entire course of the government’s tenure to exert greater control over the regulation of broadcast media, as well as his efforts to reduce the independence of Kan, or shut it down completely.