The High Court of Justice’s response on Tuesday to the government regarding the Second Authority for Television and Radio was a short warning: If elected officials choose not to comply with court rulings, they risk exposure to civil lawsuits.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and Justices Alex Stein and Ruth Ronnen. The panel did not issue new interim relief or decide the underlying petitions. Instead, it said that, “under the circumstances,” there was reason to return to “basic first principles.”
The court then cited a 2008 High Court ruling on the duty to comply with judicial decisions.
“Compliance with and respect for court judgments are among the basic conditions on which the rule of law in a democratic state rests,” the justices quoted. Without them, the earlier ruling stated, the rule of law is undermined, social order deteriorates, and “the distance between the rule of law and anarchy is a hair’s breadth.”
The panel also repeated the distinction drawn in that ruling between a private citizen who disregards a court order and a state authority that does so.
Noncompliance by a citizen, it noted, is a serious harm to the rule of law. Noncompliance by an authority of the state is “all the more grave.”
A state authority that takes the law into its own hands, complying with a judicial order when it chooses and ignoring it when it does not, the decision continued, sows “seeds of disaster and anarchy” and fosters a culture of power and arbitrariness.
Elected officials, public employees, required to act according to law
The decision also referred to a 2025 decision by Deputy President Noam Sohlberg before applying those principles to the present dispute.
“These basic principles apply both to the actions of elected officials and to the actions of public employees, all of whom are required to act in accordance with the law,” the decision stated.
It then drew a sharper distinction with respect to public employees, warning that public employees who act against court rulings could, in some cases, lose the legal protection that normally prevents them from being personally sued for damages. This immunity, the decision explained, should not apply when public employees act contrary to judicial decisions.
The decision came after the cabinet unanimously declared on Sunday that it would not recognize decisions, approvals, appointments, or actions by the outgoing Second Authority Council while, in the government’s view, it did not meet the statutory threshold required to operate.
That declaration followed the High Court’s June 17 interim order freezing the government’s March decisions to appoint a replacement council. The court ruled that the outgoing council would continue to serve in its existing composition until a final ruling on the petitions.
Attorney-General objects to cabinet's resolution
The government has maintained that the outgoing council lacks the legally required quorum. Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara told the court that the cabinet’s resolution amounted to a further serious attempt to thwart judicial decisions and intimidate those seeking to comply with them.
Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs rejected the characterization that the cabinet had called for noncompliance, describing the resolution as sharp criticism of a ruling the government believes contradicts the law’s explicit language. He said the government would pursue legal avenues to overturn it.
The court’s decision followed update notices filed by the Attorney-General’s Office and the Journalists Association in the case.