Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday invalidated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appointment of government number two, Aryé Dery, who was found guilty of tax evasion.
At the end of December, the Israeli deputies had hastily adopted a text, dubbed the “Dery law” by the press, authorizing the attribution of a ministerial portfolio to a man found guilty of a crime if he does not was not sentenced to prison. The objective of this text was to allow Mr. Dery, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Shas party, the second party in the government coalition, to sit on the executive.
The Supreme Court announced in a press release that it had decided by a majority of 10 judges out of 11 “that the appointment of deputy Aryé Dery to the post of Minister of the Interior and Health cannot be validated”. “The Prime Minister must dismiss him”, continues the highest court in the country, recalling that Mr. Dery had announced in early 2022 that he was retiring from political life after his conviction for tax evasion.
This withdrawal was also a condition set by the courts to avoid prison. But he was re-elected in the November legislative elections and appointed to the government set up at the end of December by Mr. Netanyahu with his ultra-Orthodox and far-right allies.
Fundamental Laws Debate
In Israel, where the Basic Laws serve as the Constitution, the judiciary is the only one able to control the government. And the “Dery law” is in fact an amendment to one of these laws affirming that a citizen charged – and a fortiori condemned – cannot occupy a post of minister.
In their reasoning, the judges criticized the new text of the law without invalidating it, and considered that the appointment of Mr. Dery to the government was “in serious contradiction with the fundamental principles of the rule of law”.
“We will make sure to repair this injustice by all legal means”, announced the leaders of the parties of the coalition, in a joint statement describing the decision as “a serious attack on democracy”. According to his spokesman, Mr. Netanyahu went to Mr. Dery’s home after it and told him: “When my brother is in distress, I come to see him. »
For his part, the leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, said in a statement that if “Dery is not dismissed, the government will be outlaws and a government which does not respect the law is an illegal government. “.
Disputed reform project
Justice Minister Yariv Levin called the court’s decision “absurd” and lamented that it “chose not to respect the people’s choice”.
Mr. Levin had announced in early January a controversial program of reforms to the judicial system, which includes the introduction of an “override” clause allowing Parliament to overrule a Supreme Court decision by a simple majority.
This reform, which must be submitted to Parliament on a date still unknown, was shouted down on Saturday evening by a crowd of some 80,000 people in Tel Aviv. It aims to increase the power of elected officials over that of magistrates and, according to its detractors, jeopardizes the democratic character of the State of Israel.
If adopted, it could be used to overturn the Court’s decision on Mr. Dery, or even to quash a possible conviction of Mr. Netanyahu, who is currently on trial for corruption in a series of cases.
A tutelary figure of Shas, a party accustomed to making and breaking coalitions since the 1980s, Mr. Dery has been a minister in many governments. In 1993, the Supreme Court had already demanded that he be dismissed when he was interior minister, after being indicted for corruption. In 2000, he was sentenced to three years in prison and released after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
Questioned by AFP, Claude Klein, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, believes that the decision of the Supreme Court should not have an impact on the coalition, “because Shas has too many interest in staying there. But it could, according to him, “accelerate” the government’s desire to pass its justice reform.