State Prosecutor Amit Aisman will be appointed acting attorney general until the post is permanently filled, Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Thursday.
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit is due to end his tenure at the end of the month, but the committee charged with finding his successor has not yet done so.
Sa’ar decided to nominate Aisman due to this delay, after Mendelblit refused to extend his term beyond the end of the month.
Both of Mendelblit’s deputies, Ran Nizri and Roi Sheindorf, are candidates to replace him.
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Another deputy, Amit Merari, is the partner of former Knesset legal advisor Eyal Yinon, who is also running for the post.
Sa’ar is preparing for the possibility that the cabinet fails to ratify the next attorney general’s appointment by the time of Mendelblit’s retirement, following the delay in the work of the committee headed by retired Supreme Court president, Justice Asher Grunis.
On Thursday the committee published the final list of candidates for the post, consisting of nine jurists. The three candidates Sa’ar is backing are former Tel Aviv Prosecutor Gali Baharav-Miara and attorney general deputies Nizri and Sheindorf. Also running are Tel Aviv District Court Judge Michal Agmon-Gonen, Defense Ministry legal advisor Itay Ofir, professors Ariel Bendor and Barak Medina, Dr. Aviad Bakshi and Yinon.
