Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee head Simcha Rothman excised a key clause from a draft law on the attorney general’s role that would have preserved some apolitical characters of the key position, during a raucous hearing on Monday.

The clause stated that an attorney general would be appointed for a one-term period of six years, as is currently the case. The fixed term means that the attorney general remains in place even if a new government takes office during their tenure.

But Rothman proposed instead that if a new government was dissatisfied with the serving attorney general, it could replace them within the first 100 days of its tenure.

This would enable any government to remove the serving attorney general without any professional grounds or justification, a step that would politicize the role by making it dependent on the goodwill of a given administration.

During the meeting, opposition MKs in the committee denounced Rothman for this and other aspects of the bill, accusing him of engineering a new attorney general role that would be subservient to the government.

“You have turned the legal advisory service into a law for cronies… You have removed the mask. You want a political lawyer for the government. This is regime change,” averred Democrats MK Efrat Rayten.

MK Karine Elharrar (Yesh Atid) made similar comments, asserting that the attorney general would be a “fully political appointment,” and that the coalition simply wanted “an attorney general who will do what the government wants.”

Rothman insisted, however, that his model was legitimate, and pointed to Western democracies such as the US, UK, Canada, and others, where the........

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