The government resolution to change the process for firing the attorney general appears to be doomed from the outset, legally speaking, given the severe procedural problems with the drafting of the measure, its content, and its extremely problematic timing.

As the government knew would happen, good governance watchdog groups filed petitions to the High Court of Justice against the resolution immediately after ministers approved it on Sunday.

The Attorney-General’s Office has stated flatly that the new process — which excludes a professional committee’s recommendation and gives ministers absolute power to oust the country’s top legal official — is simply “unlawful.” It appears likely that the court will issue an injunction against the measure while it adjudicates the petitions, similar to how it stalled the dismissal of now-outgoing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

Notwithstanding a full-blown constitutional crisis, for which the current government has not yet shown the stomach, what then was the purpose of passing a cabinet resolution so replete with legal difficulties, and so likely to be blocked?

The passage of the resolution comes against the most severe crisis so far within the current coalition, in which it appears that the government is on the cusp of falling due to the demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties to enshrine in law decades of blanket military service exemptions for yeshiva students.

Related: Government approves new method to fire AG, ignoring her warning that it’s illegal

This is a politically ruinous issue for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party, given the widespread public support for Haredi men to be drafted into the IDF, especially amid the seemingly never-ending war........

© The Times of Israel