Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting with President Yitzhak Amit and Justices Alex Stein and Ruth Ronen, ruled on Wednesday in the dispute over the Second Authority Council. The court converted its temporary order into a standing interim injunction until a final judgment, freezing the government’s March decision to appoint Yifat Ben Haim-Shegev as council chair and install the rest of the new council.
The practical effect is that the outgoing council will remain in office and can now review the sale of Reshet 13. The justices held that council members who resigned should not be counted in determining the council’s quorum, lowering the threshold needed for the body to meet and make binding decisions. The court said the resignation pattern raised a “serious suspicion” that it was meant to thwart earlier rulings in the case and obstruct the court’s ability to examine the claims before it.
According to the court, there were indications that Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi or his staff were directly involved in encouraging members to resign. The justices also criticized the resigning members for trying to paralyze the outgoing council while still seeking to serve on the minister’s planned new council, saying that conduct conflicted with their public duty.
The ruling is a major setback for Karhi and an immediate boost for the embattled broadcaster. Reshet 13’s planned sale to a group of tech entrepreneurs led by Assaf Rappaport, one of Wiz’s founders, had stalled because no regulator was functioning to approve it. With quorum restored, the outgoing council could meet in the coming days, examine the deal, and grant the approvals needed to avoid the channel’s collapse.
The case comes amid Karhi’s broader effort to overhaul Israel’s broadcasting system by shutting down the Second Authority and the Cable and Satellite Council and replacing them with a single streamlined regulator. The government’s March move to replace the council and appoint Ben Haim-Shegev triggered multiple petitions from groups including the Movement for Quality Government, the Journalists’ Organization, the Press Council, Channel 12 News, and the Association for the Preservation of Legal Values, which argued that the process violated consultation rules and harmed press and expression freedoms. After the ruling, Karhi said the court had no authority and vowed that “democracy will win,” while journalists’ union chair Chaim Har-Zahav called the decision a major victory for free press and democracy.
