Israel’s High Court of Justice disqualified an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from serving as a minister, a decision which could threaten to unravel the newly-formed government.
(Bloomberg) —
Israel’s High Court of Justice disqualified an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from serving as a minister, a decision which could threaten to unravel the newly-formed government.
A panel of justices ruled 10 to 1 that Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, should be blocked from holding a cabinet portfolio, according to a statement from the court. Deri was appointed by Netanyahu to serve a half term as both Interior Minister and Health Minister, before becoming Finance Minister in a rotation arrangement.
Deri was convicted of tax offenses in 2022 and given a suspended sentence. He also served jail time beginning in 2000 following a bribery, fraud, and breach of trust conviction.
Members of Shas, including Minister of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services Yakov Margi, indicated prior to the decision that the party would pull out of the coalition if Deri is not in the cabinet, leaving Netanyahu without a ruling majority.
Netanyahu’s Likud party said in a statement it attributed to all of the coalition parties, that the decision was a “huge injustice,” not only to Deri personally, but to the over two million citizens who had voted in favor of the coalition parties.
“We will act in any legal way that is available to us and without delay, to correct the injustice and the serious damage caused to the democratic decision and the sovereignty of the people,” the Likud said.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid countered that if Deri isn’t fired, the government will be breaking the law.
“A government that does not obey the law is an illegal government,” Lapid said. “It cannot demand that the citizens obey the law. If Aryeh Deri is not fired, Israel will fall into an unprecedented legal crisis, will no longer be a democracy, and will not be a state of law.”
The legal dispute over Deri’s participation in the government is a microcosm of a much larger fight over the legitimacy of the High Court of Justice’s role in Israel. Over the past three decades, the court has served as a constitutional guardian by using the country’s basic laws and the justices’ “reasonableness” standard to monitor the executive and legislative branches.
The majority ruled in this case that Deri’s appointment was unreasonable under the basic laws.
Netanyahu ran his campaign aimed partly at the court itself, saying it needed to be reined in to protect the people’s will. In this case, his lawyers argued that the election showed that voters didn’t care about Deri’s convictions and wanted him serving as a senior minister — and the justices had no legitimate power to interfere.
“This decision shows the Supreme Court seeks to exercise power over every aspect of Israeli life, even the outcomes of elections,” said Professor Eugene Kontorovich, director of International Law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, which has advocated judicial change for a decade. “That the Supreme Court can dismantle an elected coalition based not on the law, but on its own notions of propriety, powerfully illustrates the need for urgent reform.”
Many other legal experts disagree and believe that without the check-and-balance function of the court, Israel will slip into an undemocratic tyranny of the majority. They object to the incoming government’s efforts to remake the relationship among the branches.
“There is room for improvement in the judicial system, but the current political discourse and current reform is not the way to do this,” Nadiv Mordechay, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, said. “It is a dangerous way to do it. It is a one-sided reform in which the political side that won the election is using its majority to radically change the relationship between the branches.”
After the ruling, Netanyahu went to see Deri. Apart from fighting or defying the ruling, they may decide to appoint another Shas official and then push through a law curtailing the court’s authority.
(Updates with comments, background beginning in fifth paragraph)
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