Jerusalem
CNN
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Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to allow Shas party leader Arie Deli, a key ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to serve as a cabinet member after he was convicted of tax evasion in February 2022. We ruled 10 to 1 that it shouldn’t.
Netanyahu should remove Delhi from his post, the court ruling said. Such a move would risk plunging the country into political crisis.
Deli’s Shas party, which won 11 seats in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset in November and is a key component of Netanyahu’s coalition, called the court’s decision “arbitrary and unprecedented” and immediately objected to.
The Sephardic Religious Party said the court “today destroyed the voices and votes of 400,000 voters of the Shas movement.”
“Today the court actually ruled that the election is meaningless. The court’s decision is political and tainted,” the party said.
The High Court had been asked to rule on whether it was legally reasonable to appoint Deli to a post in Netanyahu’s cabinet despite his tax evasion conviction.
A judge ruled that his appointment was “unbearable.”
“This is due, among other things, to his pending conviction,” he said, not retiring from public life as he said he would do when convicted in a tax evasion case.
A high court had been asked to determine whether it was legally reasonable to appoint Deli to a post in Netanyahu’s cabinet.
The underlying legal question is whether Deli’s tax evasion conviction constitutes a crime of moral misconduct, which would have disqualified him from serving in government until the November elections.
However, Netanyahu and his allies changed the law following the election victory, paving the way for Deli to become a minister.
Deli was a member of the Knesset when he was convicted of tax evasion last year.
He resigned as an MP rather than give the chairman of the Electoral Commission a chance to decide whether his conviction would disqualify him as a minister.
This means that the legal question of whether Deli’s fraud conviction counts as a crime of moral infidelity remains unresolved.
Deri’s allies signaled this week that Shas would not resign as minister, even if the court’s ruling were against him.
His refusal to resign, or Netanyahu’s refusal to remove him, could set off a constitutional crisis that would pit the government against the High Court.
Netanyahu and his coalition partners hold 64 seats in the 120-seat parliament, with a majority of four seats. Deri’s Shas party holds his 11 of his 64 seats, so removing Deri would put the government in jeopardy.
On Wednesday evening local time, Netanyahu was seen visiting Deli’s home, spending about 45 minutes inside, and then leaving again. Netanyahu did not comment to journalists outside.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, has vowed to intervene on Deli’s behalf.
“I will do everything necessary to ensure that the injustices done to Rabbi Arieh Deli, the Shas movement, and Israeli democracy are fully redressed,” Levin said.
Levin has already announced plans to change Israel’s judicial system by giving the Knesset the power to reverse Supreme Court decisions and consider nominations to the court.
Supreme Court President Esther Hayyut, one of the 10 judges who ruled Wednesday that Netanyahu should remove Delhi, last week called the proposed changes “an unrestricted assault on the legal system.” is.
Israel has been plagued by political instability in recent years, and Netanyahu narrowly won the fifth Israeli general election in less than four years in November.
Netanyahu, who was sworn in as prime minister for the sixth time in late December, has remained a dominant figure during a period of prolonged political turmoil.
His latest government is likely the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
Extremist Itamar Ben Guvir, convicted of supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, became Minister of National Security. Bezalel Smotrich, who has supported the abolition of the Palestinian Authority and the annexation of the West Bank, has been appointed finance minister.
Netanyahu’s latest term got off to a rocky start, with tens of thousands of people protesting in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on January 14 against his government’s proposed changes to Israel’s judicial system.
Attendees held signs comparing Netanyahu to Russian President Vladimir Putin and said Israel was becoming something like semi-democratic Hungary or theocracy Iran.
The protesters told CNN that they came out of fear for Israel’s future and to send Netanyahu a message that the public would not support what they see as the dismantling of Israel’s democracy.
