Aryeh Deri (Photo: Flash 90)
The High Court hearing on the invalidation of the Deri law and the cancellation of the appointment of the chairman of the Shas as Minister of the Interior and Health has now ended (Thursday), after about 6 hours of discussion and arguments in the Supreme Court. The final decision of the 11 judges is expected to be published this Sunday.
At the end of the hearing, Attorney Dafna Holtz Lachner, who submitted the petition on behalf of the “Fortress of Democracy” group, said that “I am under the impression that the court examined in a very thorough and precise manner the fact that there is a person who wants to be appointed a senior minister in the Israeli government with a very complex criminal record, of 3 criminal offenses and governmental corruption of the highest degree”.
“Last year he stood in front of a judge and said he was leaving political life to prevent disgrace, to escape the decision on the issue” she added and mentioned. “I got the impression that the court sees it in a serious way and sees things, and even though the prime minister wants him by his side and says that he is a responsible and mature man – the court will also consider the additional considerations. We very much hope that he will give them the necessary weight, and determine that this type of appointment is tainted with extreme improbability”.
The marginal question in the discussion was the cancellation of the Deri law, which allows those who have been convicted of crimes and sentenced to a suspended sentence to be members of the government. Netanyahu, Deri, the Knesset and even the legal advisor to the government believe that the law should not be repealed.
However, the legal adviser to the government believes that the appointment of Deri is extremely unreasonable and should be ordered to be canceled. The Knesset did not address the question of reasonableness, and Netanyahu and Deri believed that there was no problem with the appointment. As a result, the central question in the discussion was whether the position of the legal advisor to the government to cancel the appointment of Aryeh Deri as minister would be accepted or not.
High Court judges in a hearing (Photo: Yonatan Zindel/Flash 90)
During the hearing, a representative of the Shas party told the judges that the discretion of the voters should be taken into account, that their working assumption was that if they chose the Shas party, Aryeh Deri would be minister. In his words, Attorney Simhoni referred to the claim of the legal advisor to the government that Deri’s appointment as minister is extremely improbable, and said: “The judgment of those 400,000 people, who chose Mr. Deri to serve as minister, to come and say, your judgment is so extremely unreasonable, it unacceptable”.
After the judges told him that Deri would not join as a minister but as a Knesset member, Simhoni said: “The working assumption of the 400,000 Shas voters who went out to vote is that Deri will be a minister.”
Earlier, Attorney Anar Hellman, who manages the High Courts Department in the Prosecutor’s Office, responded on behalf of the Legal Adviser to the Government, saying that the offenses for which Deri Yesh was convicted were scandalous, and therefore his appointment as minister should be disqualified due to the extreme unreasonableness of the appointment. At the same time, Hellman said that according to the position of the Legal Adviser to the Government, the Basic Law itself should not be invalidated because, despite the difficulties it causes, it is not invalid.
The representative of the Knesset, attorney Anat Goldstein, clearly told the judges that the Knesset’s position is that the High Court does not have the authority to invalidate basic laws and provoked the wrath of Judges Fogelman and Barak Erez. Goldstein did not address the question of whether the appointment is reasonable, since it is not under her authority.
The knitted lawyer Michael Ravillo representing Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the High Court does not have the authority to invalidate fundamental laws and that Deri’s appointment to minister should not be invalidated because the appointment is reasonable in light of Deri’s unique political situation and experience.
The judges were especially hard on attorney Navot Tel Tzur, who represented Aryeh Deri also in the process in which he was convicted as part of the plea agreement, following the understanding of the court that approved the plea agreement without a suspended prison sentence due to the understanding that Deri is permanently retiring from political life.
Attorney Tel Tzur tried to explain that there was a misunderstanding between the judge and the prosecutor’s office, especially in light of Attorney Anar Hellman’s words that Deri did not commit to retiring from political life, but it seemed that the judges were not convinced. At one point, Judge Hayut remarked, “It just doesn’t make sense.”
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