Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday dismissed a senior minister recently found guilty of tax fraud to comply a judgment of the Supreme Court disqualified the minister for service, shaking the right-wing government just weeks after coming to power.
By complying with the court’s ruling to remove the minister, Aryeh Deri, Mr. Netanyahu avoided an immediate head-on clash with the judiciary at a time when the country was engulfed in a gay debate. harsh about government plan for a judicial overhaul. Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest against a plan to limit the powers of the judiciary, which many see as a challenge to Israel’s democratic system. About 130,000 protesters showed up on Saturday night in Tel Aviv and other cities, according to Israeli media.
“I am compelled, with a heavy heart, with great sadness and with great difficulty, to remove you from the position of minister in the government,” Netanyahu wrote in a letter to Deri, which the prime minister ordered. read during his weekly cabinet meeting, attended by Mr. Deri.
“I intend to find every legal way that you can continue to contribute to the state of Israel with your great experience and skills, in line with the will of the people,” Netanyahu added.
Netanyahu denounced the Supreme Court’s order as “a regrettable decision that ignores the will of the people.” The decision to fire Mr. Deri will take effect in the next 48 hours.
But Mr. Netanyahu, himself appear in court for corruptionface predicament Deri, leader of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party and close political ally whose support is key to the government’s stability and survival League.
Speaking to the cabinet after the letter was read, Mr. Deri said: “I have an ironclad pledge to the 400,000 people who voted for me and Shas,” according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster. “There is no judicial decision to prevent me from serving and representing them,” he said, adding, “I intend to continue to give my best for the public and the union.”
A veteran politician, Mr Deri is one of the most experienced and politically moderate ministers in the coalition that has formed the most religiously conservative and far-right coalition in Israel’s history. The 11 seats Shas won in the November elections are crucial to the government’s majority in the 120-member Parliament; The coalition parties together control 64 seats.
In another sign of the troubles facing Mr. Netanyahu’s fledgling government, a far-right party, the Zionist party, boycotted Sunday’s cabinet meeting to protest against today’s decision. Friday of the minister of defense about the destruction of a wild outpost that the settlers had set up in the occupied area. West Bank. The leader of religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, has requested authority over such actions as part of his alliance agreement with Mr. Netanyahu, but transferring that authority from Defense and military ministers would need to have legislation that has yet to come into force.
Mr. Deri has served as interior minister and health minister, although he was convicted last year and a suspended prison sentence was imposed under a plea agreement. Ten of the 11 judges at Israel’s highest court ruled against Mr Deri’s appointment on the grounds that the judges called “extremely absurd”, mainly due to the recent case of Mr. he.
The panel also took into account a past conviction, in 1999, when Mr Deri was found guilty of accepting bribes, fraud and treason while he was serving as a lawmaker and cabinet minister. For that, he served two years out of a three-year prison sentence, and upon his release, he was banned from political and public activities for several years.
The judges also noted that as part of a plea agreement last year, Mr Deri, then an opposition lawmaker, told the court he would give up his political life and resigned his position. from Parliament. Mr. Deri then ran for re-election in the November election.
The judges argued that Mr Deri’s lawyers tried to mislead the Supreme Court about the terms of the plea agreement by claiming there had been a misunderstanding and that he did not intend to quit forever. forever.
Mr. Deri, 63, was born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel with his family as a child. He was one of the founders of Shas in the 1980s, and after participating in the 1988 election he became interior minister in Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s government.
At the age of 29, Mr. Deri is the youngest minister in Israel’s history. In 1993, after he was accused of accepting bribes, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that a politician being indicted could not serve as a minister. He was forced into remand for nearly a decade after being released from prison in 2002, and he returned to the political scene in 2011.
There is no immediate sign that the end of this latest ministerial term by Mr Deri will bring down the government, despite previous threats from other Shas politicians.
Mr. Deri was allowed to remain a lawmaker and continue to lead his party. Other Shas politicians with similar views will likely fill the ministerial posts he has vacated, but analysts say Mr Deri will continue to direct relevant government affairs to other party ministers and legislators.
In line with Mr. Deri, some analysts have suggested that Mr. Netanyahu could keep him in the cabinet as an observer or that the government’s lawmakers could vote to dissolve the government. which immediately established a new administration in which Mr. Deri would be appointed. an “alternative” prime minister — an appointment that experts say judges would be harder to prevent.
Shas attracted much support from working-class, traditional and Orthodox Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin, promising to empower them. Shortly after Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling, Mr Deri said he was “more committed to continuing the revolution” than ever before.
“They closed the door to us, so we would come in through the window. They close the window on us, so we’ll break in through the ceiling,” he said, clearly referring to the judiciary.
The new government wants to make some changes that will weaken the power of the judiciary.
Proposals include one that gives the government the upper hand in selecting judges and another that reduces the Supreme Court’s ability to revoke laws passed by Congress.
That measure would allow Parliament to overrule court decisions with a narrowest majority of 61 out of 120 members. The government also wants to eliminate the ability of Supreme Court justices to use a vaguely defined standard of ethics as “unreasonable” to overrule a law, decision or government appointment. .
The court ruling to disqualify Mr Deri has only deepened divisions in Israel over the proposed judicial changes, reinforcing the resolve of those in favor of the changes, who say they are necessary to correct the imbalance of power between the Supreme Court and politicians by reducing the influence of unelected judges in favor of the elected government.
Critics say the proposed changes would undermine the independence of the supreme court, severely reduce judicial oversight and remove the protections the court affords to minorities. numbers, turning Israel into a democracy in name only, where the majority is unchallenged.
“Now is the dark hour. Now is the time to stand up and shout,” David Grossman, a leading Israeli author and liberal voice, told the crowd at a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.
