The Supreme Court of Israel decided this Wednesday that an important member of the new Government of the country does not meet the conditions to be a minister, due to an old judicial sentence, in what may be the first political crisis of the legislature.
The Supreme Court ruled that Aryeh Deri, the influential leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, who has repeatedly served under previous Netanyahu governments, is unfit to serve as a minister, after he was convicted last year of tax offenses and released from prison. conditional. by virtue of a court agreement.
The prime minister and leader of the coalition government, Benjamin Netanyahu, must now decide whether to abide by the court’s decision and dismiss his main ally, Deri, or enter into a dispute with the judicial system.
The decision has potentially troubling consequences for Netanyahu’s coalition: some Shas members have called on Netanyahu to find a solution that would give Deri the position they say he deserves as party leader.
Otherwise, the Shas party could block the coalition, which would reduce Netanyahu’s 64-seat majority to 11 seats in the 120-member parliament.
Yakov Margi, a member of Shas, said in a radio interview that “if Aryeh Deri does not stay in the government, there is no government.”
In a move seen as crucial to uniting the ruling coalition, Israeli lawmakers last month changed a law that barred a convict on parole from holding office.
This issue paved the way for Deri to join the Government, but also led to a challenge before the High Court.
Deri is currently fulfilling his term as Minister of Health and the Interior and should move to the Treasury portfolio in the second half of the legislature.
Likud and its ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners won a majority of parliamentary seats in elections on November 1, forming a government that has made changing the justice system a central issue on the political agenda.
Polls show that most Israelis oppose Deri remaining as minister, but even so, a decision by him is expected to only deepen divisions over the Supreme Court decision.
Deri had already been sentenced to three years in prison for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in 2000, in a case referring to his tenure as Interior Minister in the 1990s, having served 22 months in prison, before returning to the politics and your party.
Source: TSF
