Universities threaten to strike if attorney general is fired

The presidents of Israel’s eight research universities warned on Sunday 9 March their institutions would go on strike if the government fires Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, saying in a letter that the move is an unprecedented danger to the rule of law in Israel, reports The Times of Israel.

“We warn of the unprecedented danger to the rule of law if the attorney general is fired,” the letter read. “In Israel’s democracy, the attorney general is the most important guardian against potential harm by the government of the rights of the citizens and individual residents in the country … She constitutes, together with the courts, the buffer between democratic rule in which checks and balances on the government are necessary, and tyrannical dictatorial rule in which the government can do as it pleases,” the letter read.

The top professors asserted that the position of the attorney general is meant to serve the public, not politicians, and that calls to fire her constitute a call to break from the rule of law. The letter came after Justice Minister Yariv Levin began the process of removing Baharav-Miara from her post last week, accusing her of having politicised her office and repeatedly thwarting the will of the government.
Full report on The Times of Israel site