Is the Supreme Court about to ax the alternate prime minister?

What would happen if the judges decide to surprise and flex their muscles?

By GIL HOFFMAN
Defense Minister Benny Gantz at the Knesset plenum, Oct. 15, 2020 (photo credit: GIDEON SHARON/KNESSET SPOKESPERSON)
Defense Minister Benny Gantz at the Knesset plenum, Oct. 15, 2020
(photo credit: GIDEON SHARON/KNESSET SPOKESPERSON)
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz signed a coalition agreement in May guaranteeing a November 2021 rotation in the Prime Minister’s Office, doubts were immediately expressed about whether Netanyahu would honor the deal.
Netanyahu appeared to provide an answer soon afterward by insisting on maintaining the exit points provided to him in loopholes in the deal that would allow him to go to an election with him as caretaker prime minister. Even if it meant delaying passing state budgets needed for the government to function, Netanyahu made the exit points a top priority.
When Blue and White fell to single digits in the polls, even the party’s top leaders stopped talking about a rotation in the Prime Minister’s Office. Talk in Likud about a new deal that would give Gantz the presidency instead of the premiership was laughed off by Gantz’s advisers, but MKs in Blue and White were not as quick to pop the trial balloon.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court stepped into the fray, hearing arguments for and against whether it would be legal for Netanyahu to take Gantz’s post as alternate prime minister when the changeover would take place and Gantz would become prime minister. The judges, who normally do not like theoretical questions, dove right in during the televised hearing, asking one theoretical question after another and broadening the scope far beyond the technical question at hand of whether an indicted MK can become alternate prime minister if legally he cannot be a minister but can be prime minister.
The questions asked by judges Esther Hayut, Neal Hendel and Hanan Melcer gave broad hints that attempts by watchdog groups like the Movement for Quality Government to disqualify the coalition agreement did not stand much of a chance.
But what would happen if the judges decide to surprise and flex their muscles? At one point in the hearing, one of the lawyers mistakenly called his legal colleague a member of Knesset. So imagine if this hearing would actually have a political impact.
The judges have it in their power to cancel the coalition agreement and make Likud and Blue and White decide immediately: Do they want to work together or not?
Gantz would have to give up his far fetched goal of becoming prime minister and either initiate an election or let Netanyahu keep his throne indefinitely. At best, he could become president, while losing whatever political support he had left.
Netanyahu would no longer have exit points as excuses for not passing a budget. He would have to stop preventing his own government from functioning. Cabinet meetings would have to become real again, bills would be enabled to pass and top appointments would have to be made in key posts like police inspector-general, state prosecutor, Justice Ministry director-general and consul-general in New York.
The judges clearly do not like deciding for the politicians, so chances are they will take their time issuing a ruling. They might even decide that they need a wider forum of judges to make a decision.

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But if the only alternative to prevent chaos is to axe the alternative prime minister post, perhaps the judges will surprise everyone with a surprise judgment.
The judges clearly do not like deciding for the politicians, so chances are they will take their time issuing a ruling. They might even decide that they need a wider forum of judges to make a decision.
But if the only alternative to prevent chaos is to axe the alternative prime minister post, perhaps the judges will surprise everyone with a surprise judgment.


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