Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik called Wednesday for deliberations on Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi’s controversial media overhaul bill to be transferred from the special committee created to advance it back to the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee, warning that the current proceedings no longer meet the basic requirements of a proper legislative process.

The demand followed a heated committee session on Monday, in which chair Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbaryan barred the panel’s legal staff from speaking, triggering a shouting match and the ejection of opposition lawmakers. Afik said in her letter that she had instructed the legal advisers to leave that meeting after they were prevented from presenting their professional position.

The episode has become the latest flashpoint in mounting concerns among Knesset legal officials and opposition lawmakers that coalition leaders are increasingly bypassing parliamentary procedure, curtailing debate, mistreating legal advisers, and disregarding professional legal advice to accelerate controversial legislation.

The bill would give the government significant control over broadcast media, news sites and other media by establishing a new regulatory council, with a majority of members chosen by the communications minister, that would have an array of authorities over broadcast media, including the ability to issue hefty fines.

The legislation has drawn sharp opposition from both the committee’s professional legal staff and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who have warned that the current draft undermines press freedom and allows for political interference in media.

In a sharply worded letter to Distel-Atbaryan, Afik rejected the chair’s claim that the committee’s legal advisers were responsible for “the many problems with the bill and its deliberations,” and said that “the committee’s conduct itself has created these problems, through the failure to receive answers from government bodies, the failure to transfer data, and the failure to make decisions on key issues alongside the accelerated reading of the bill.”

Afik said it has become clear that........

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