As the Deri Law 2 and Impairment Law continued to be prepared in a special committee for return to the Knesset for reading on Sunday, critics have appealed to the Knesset legal adviser to intervene in the matter as a conflict of interest for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Movement for Quality Government said that Netanyahu shouldn't be allowed to participate in the vote for the impairment law, which would change the conditions for which the prime minister would be determined unfit for service.
The new bill specified that the prime minister would only be able to be deemed unfit on medical grounds through a special procedure in the Knesset committee and plenum.
In the Special Committee for Amendments to Basic Law: Government, it had been argued that the rarely implemented provision was unclear in its wording that it pertained to medical conditions.
Is this bill being advanced for personal reasons?
The Movement for Quality Government argued that this bill was being advanced for personal reasons. The NGO had in February filed a petition to the High Court of Justice arguing that Netanyahu should be declared unfit for service due to his conflict of interest between the reform and his ongoing corruption trials.
"The impairment law designed to allow Netanyahu to continue subordinating the needs of the state to his legal needs is a disgrace."
Hidi Negev
"The impairment law designed to allow Netanyahu to continue subordinating the needs of the state to his legal needs is a disgrace," said movement attorney Hidi Negev. "The entire purpose of the law is to intervene in a legal proceeding pending in the High Court – but it may be that in the future we will already have to deal with the problems that this law creates with regard to the impossible freedom it grants to rulers in Israel."
Labor MK Efrat Rayten also said on Sunday before the special committee session that the coalition was changing the rules of the game for Netanyahu, and that the "entire Knesset works with him to influence his trial."
Israeli media had also reported in late January that the Attorney-General's Office was weighing declaring Netanyahu unfit for service on these grounds. The Attorney-General's Office denied these reports. Legal experts have said to The Jerusalem Post that such a move has shaky legal grounding, as the provision for declaring a prime minister unfit for duty is for medical matters, even if not explicitly defined as so in the current version.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara had declared the conflict of interest agreement negotiated by her predecessor in effect. The agreement limited Netanyahu from involving himself in the appointments of law officials. Baharav-Miara has confirmed that Netanyahu's involvement in the ongoing judicial reforms would violate the agreement.