Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar said on Monday that he expected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to comply with the High Court of Justice’s decision in the dispute over the Second Authority for Television and Radio, despite the government’s unanimous declaration a day earlier that it would not recognize actions taken by the council restored by the court.
“As I know him, the prime minister will comply with the High Court decision,” Zohar said in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet. “There will not be a constitutional crisis.”
Zohar said that such a crisis would mark “the beginning of a slippery slope,” while maintaining that the government believed the court had acted contrary to the law.
“We told the High Court that its conduct was against the law,” he said. “We did not create a constitutional crisis, but asked to prevent one. High Court decisions must be obeyed - but we are saying that we are on the verge of a constitutional crisis.”
Government has 'already crossed a red line'
Retired Supreme Court justice Hanan Melcer offered a far sharper assessment in a separate Kan Reshet Bet interview, saying the government had “already crossed the red line” by declaring that it would not recognize the court’s decision.
Melcer said the move harmed the system of checks and balances between the legislature, executive, and judiciary, adding that a free press also served as an essential democratic check.
He said that, in his view, the situation recalled the period before October 7, when disputes surrounding the government’s judicial overhaul were at their height. Melcer also linked the dispute to the coming elections, arguing that normalizing noncompliance with court decisions could eventually extend to decisions of the Central Elections Committee.
The comments came after the government unanimously approved a proposal advanced by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi stating that it would not recognize any decision, approval, appointment, or other action taken by the Second Authority Council so long as it did not meet the statutory threshold set by law.
The government further said that media-market actors would not be able to rely on actions taken by the council or claim a fait accompli based on them.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara told the High Court in an urgent submission that the decision was “another serious attempt to thwart judicial decisions.” She warned that it undermined basic principles of the rule of law and was intended to deter those charged with carrying out court orders.
Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs later disputed the characterization that the government had called for noncompliance, saying the statement amounted to sharp criticism of a ruling that the government believed contradicted the law’s express wording. He said the government intended to pursue lawful avenues to change the decision in the future.
At the center of the dispute is a June 17 interim order issued by a High Court panel headed by Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, alongside Justices Alex Stein and Ruth Ronnen. The order froze government decisions from March to replace the Second Authority Council with a new council and directed the outgoing council to continue operating pending a final ruling in five petitions challenging the appointments process.
Appointments were rushed, politically motivated, and likely to harm press freedom
The Second Authority regulates commercial television and regional radio, including the news companies of Channels 12 and 13. The dispute has therefore become part of a wider conflict over Karhi’s proposed broadcasting reform and the future independence of Israeli media regulation.
Petitioners, including journalists’ organizations, media bodies, and public-interest groups, argued that the appointments were rushed, politically motivated, and likely to harm press freedom. Karhi has argued that the government is seeking to reduce regulation and reform the broadcasting market.
The June order followed the resignation of several members of the outgoing council, which the government said left it below the statutory threshold required to operate. The court ruled, on an interim basis, that the resignations should not be allowed to paralyze the council while the petitions were still pending, citing serious concern that they had been intended to frustrate the legal process.