Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that a key member of the country’s new government cannot serve as a cabinet minister in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and needs to be removed.
The high court ruled that Aryeh Deri, the influential head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party who has served repeatedly in Mr Netanyahu’s previous governments, is disqualified from serving as a minister after he was convicted last year for tax offenses and placed on probation as part of a plea deal. Mr Deri has pledged not to quit.
“Most of the judges on the panel decided that this appointment suffers from extreme unreasonability, and therefore the prime minister must remove Deri from his position,” the court said in a statement.
Mr Deri, holds the interior and health portfolios and is due to become finance minister under a rotation deal. he is and he is also deputy prime minister.
The much-anticipated ruling comes as Israel is being roiled by a dispute over sweeping changes to the country’s legal system.
One such proposal the government is considering is the elimination of the “reasonability” test when reviewing government decisions.
Critics say the various changes at issue would place too much power in the hands of the government and weaken the Supreme Court. Proponents say they would correct a power imbalance between the executive and judicial branches.
Mr Netanyahu will now have to decide whether he abides by the court ruling and dismisses his key ally, Deri — or takes the dispute with the judicial system up a notch and defies it. A spokesman for Mr Netanyahu had no immediate comment.
There was no immediate response from Netanyahu, who returned to office in December as the head of a hard-right government. Deri’s Shas Party condemned the ruling.
The ruling carries potentially troublesome consequences for Mr Netanyahu’s coalition. Some Shas members have urged Mr Netanyahu to find a solution that would grant Mr Deri the title they say he deserves as head of a mid-sized party. Otherwise, the party and its 11 seats could leave the coalition, which currently holds 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Yakov Margi, a Shas cabinet minister, told Kan public radio that, “if Aryeh Deri isn’t in the government, there isn’t a government”.
In a move that was seen as crucial to bringing the governing coalition together, Israeli legislators last month changed a law that prohibited a convict on probation from being a cabinet minister. That cleared the way for Mr Deri to join the government but prompted the Supreme Court challenge.
Likud and its ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners captured a majority of seats in the Knesset, or parliament, in the November elections, and formed a government that has made changing the legal system a centerpiece of its agenda.
Public opinion polls have shown most Israelis oppose Mr Deri serving as a government minister.
“Today it’s clear that the court, which is not elected, is not interested in compromises and wants limitless control over elected officials,” the national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement. “Reform now!”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that if Mr Deri is not dismissed, “Israel will enter an unprecedented constitutional crisis and it will no longer be a democracy and will not be a law-abiding state.”
In a sign of the charged atmosphere, a Shas member of parliament said before the ruling that if the Supreme Court barred Mr Deri, the justices were “shooting themselves in the head”.
Mr Deri was sentenced to three years in prison for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in 2000 during a stint as interior minister in the 1990s. He served 22 months in prison but made a political comeback and retook the reins of Shas in 2013.
Associated Press
