Victory for Channel 14: After Zehava Galon, chairwoman of the Meretz party, announced yesterday that she would not allow the channel's reporter to broadcast from her election headquarters on results night - High Court judges decided that this was an illegal decision and obliged the far-left party to allow broadcasts from her election headquarters.
Earlier today, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara submitted her position on the matter to the High Court of Justice, saying that the ban on Channel 14 personnel entering the headquarters violates freedom of expression.
However, in the opinion of the Advocate General, the High Court has no authority to intervene in the issue.
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After a discussion that lasted several hours, the High Court of Justice ruled that Meretz's decision was unacceptable and that it was obligated to allow the channel's reporter to broadcast from its election headquarters.
The ruling states: "Our ruling therefore expresses the view that ensuring access for all media outlets to the public arena is essential, without detracting from the right of every person and every entity to object to the content and broadcasts of one or another media outlet, or their quality.".
""Summary of the matter: For the reasons detailed above, we order the acceptance of the petition and the conversion of the conditional order into an absolute order. This is in the sense that the Meretz Party will allow Channel 14 to set up a broadcasting position at the party's election headquarters on election day, with all the logistical and technical aspects involved.".
Meretz claimed that the decision not to invite Channel 14 representatives to the election headquarters is "an expression of the party's disgust with the channel's behavior, its demonstrated disdain, and its dissemination of 'fake news'" and that this may be "the only tool the party has against media outlets to express its displeasure with its conduct.".
