Israel High Court hears bid to oust Ben-Gvir over police interference

Israel’s High Court of Justice returned to one of the country’s sharpest constitutional fights on April 15, as nine justices heard petitions seeking to force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dismiss Itamar Ben-Gvir over accusations that he crossed legal lines in running the police.

The hearing, held behind closed doors because of concerns over disruptions but broadcast live, centered on four petitions backed by Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara. The filings said Ben-Gvir, whose ministry oversees the Israel Police, repeatedly and unlawfully interfered in operational policing, tried to shape police appointments and meddled in investigations. The expanded panel underscored how far the dispute has moved beyond one minister and into the larger question of whether the executive branch can bend the legal limits placed on it by the courts.

Yariv Levin, the justice minister, said the government would not respect any ruling ordering Ben-Gvir’s removal and denounced the hearing as unlawful. Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir have cast the case as an attempt by the judiciary to seize powers that belong to elected ministers. Petitioners and the attorney general say the opposite is true: that Ben-Gvir’s conduct has formed a cumulative pattern that has already weakened police independence and eroded the rule of law.

The case did not arrive in a vacuum. In March 2023, the High Court issued instructions barring Ben-Gvir from interfering in operational police decisions. In January 2024, it went further and specifically ordered him not to interfere in the policing of demonstrations. In June 2024, the Supreme Court of Israel held an expanded-panel hearing on the constitutionality of the so-called Ben-Gvir Amendment to the Police Ordinance, another flashpoint in the struggle over who controls law enforcement.

The court is also hearing this dispute against the backdrop of an earlier benchmark that petitioners now cite against Netanyahu’s coalition. In January 2023, the High Court ruled 10-1 that appointing Shas leader Aryeh Deri as a cabinet minister was “unreasonable in the extreme,” a decision that showed the bench’s willingness to block cabinet moves it considers legally untenable.

For Israel, the timing matters. The Ben-Gvir fight had been delayed by the war with Iran, and its return comes as external pressure eases and the country’s internal battle over judicial power comes back to the fore. What is at stake is not only the fate of one hardline minister, but whether Netanyahu’s government can keep pushing against the legal restraints that have defined the fight over Israeli democracy for more than three years.