The High Court of Justice unanimously annulled the government’s appointment of the chairman of the Second Authority commercial broadcasting regulator, Yifat Ben Hai Segev, on Tuesday, as well as the appointment of two other members of that body.
The court ruled that the appointment of Ben Hai Segev, a witness in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial, violated Netanyahu’s legal conflict of interest agreement, and that the two other appointments were made without evaluating comments they made denouncing media outlets which they would be responsible for regulating.
Although only three appointments to the 15-member panel were annulled by the court, it ruled that all new appointments made by the government to the Second Authority in March this year should now be reviewed again since the council must be appointed as a collective slate reflecting a diversity of public views.
The Second Authority case created a near-constitutional crisis after the High Court issued an interim decision against the government in June this year, which prompted the government to pass an unprecedented cabinet resolution stating it would not respect the terms of that decision.
The Union of Journalists in Israel, which petitioned the court against the appointments, said the decision was “an important victory, adding that “those entrusted with regulating the media industry must be professionals, free of political affiliations and not serving the interests of the government.”
