Background
Five consolidated petitions challenged two government decisions appointing the chair and members of the Council of the Second Authority for Television and Radio, the public body that licenses and supervises Israel’s commercial television and regional radio broadcasters. The Council also regulates broadcast ethics and exercises significant authority over commercial news companies, including appointing members of their boards.
The Appointments Review Committee approved candidates proposed by the communications minister, and the government appointed a 15-member Council on March 24, 2026. The petitioners alleged, among other defects, that the Committee had not considered relevant public statements by attorney Kinneret Barashi and Dr. Haim Shine expressing hostility toward particular media organizations and journalists. They also challenged the appointment of Dr. Yifat Ben Hai-Segev as chair because the prime minister, whose criminal trial she had testified in, participated in placing and approving her appointment despite his conflict-of-interest arrangement. After that objection arose, the government repeated the vote on March 31 without the prime minister.
The Court’s Holding
The Court unanimously voided the government decisions insofar as they appointed Ben Hai-Segev as chair and Barashi and Shine as Council members. It held that the Committee’s review of Barashi and Shine rested on an incomplete factual foundation because it did not properly consider their statements concerning regulated media organizations and journalists. The prime minister also violated his conflict-of-interest arrangement by participating in the process concerning Ben Hai-Segev. The second vote did not cure that defect because it merely replicated the first decision days later, without an independent reconsideration, a materially changed factual or legal foundation, or prior legal advice about how to eliminate the first decision’s influence.
By a 2–1 majority, President Yitzhak Amit, joined by Justice Ruth Ronnen, also voided the appointments of the remaining selected members and returned all candidates to the Appointments Review Committee for an updated review if the communications minister chooses to pursue new appointments. The majority reasoned that the Council’s statutorily required balance and diversity must be assessed as a whole, that the Committee itself had treated the appointments as a single 15-member slate, and that subsequent resignations had materially changed the proposed composition. Justice Alex Stein would have left the other appointments undisturbed because no fundamental defect had been shown in them. The outgoing Council will remain in office until a new Council is constituted, and the government was ordered to pay the five petitioner groups a total of NIS 50,000 in costs.
Key Takeaways
- A public-appointments committee must consider known facts bearing on candidates’ impartiality, including expressed hostility toward entities they would regulate.
- A repeat vote does not cure a conflict-tainted decision when it simply reapproves the same result without genuinely independent, de novo consideration.
- When legislation requires a collegial body to reflect a diversity of public views, defects affecting key candidates and later changes in membership may require reconsideration of the entire slate.
Why It Matters
The judgment reinforces procedural safeguards governing appointments to an unusually powerful media regulator. Political expression does not automatically disqualify a candidate, but regulators’ demonstrated attitudes toward particular supervised organizations can require full examination and, where appropriate, stringent conflict-of-interest restrictions.
The decision also limits the government’s ability to repair a conflict-of-interest violation through formal ratification alone. A valid corrective process must involve fresh, independent consideration capable of producing a different outcome.