Israel’s Attorney General asks Netanyahu to dismiss a minister disqualified by the Supreme Court

Jan. 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Israel’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, on Thursday demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismiss Interior and Health Minister Aryeh Deri, after the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party , cannot hold these positions because he was convicted of fraud.

Baharav-Miara has indicated that “parliamentarian Deri cannot continue to be a minister in the Government of Israel” and has transferred Netanyahu in a letter that “he must act in line with the ruling and expel him from his role in the Government”, according to collected by the newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.

In her ruling, the president of the Supreme Court, Esther Hayut, stressed that Deri “is a person convicted three times for crimes” and added that “he violated his duty to serve the public loyally and in line with the law,” for which he argued that the prime minister cannot ignore “the accumulation of serious crimes of corruption” for which the leader of Shas has been found guilty.

Deri himself stated on Wednesday that he “will continue the revolution started by the predecessors with more devotion and energy.” “If they close the door on us, we will enter through the window. If they close the window on us, we will break through the roof, with God’s help,” he said in his first official reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision, approved with ten votes in favor and one in against.

Parliamentarians from Netanyahu’s Likud-led coalition — made up of various ultra-Orthodox and far-right parties — have advocated ignoring the Supreme Court’s decision. If Deri were to leave office, his portfolio should be taken over by Netanyahu, although the prime minister is indicted for corruption, so he would not be able to do so.

Likud and Shas agreed to Deri’s appointment as one of the conditions for the prime minister to gain crucial support from this party, including a commitment to amend existing legislation to remove potential impediments. Said amendment, known as the ‘Deri Law’, was approved to amend the Basic Law, which prevented those with suspended sentences from holding ministerial posts.

During the day on Wednesday, the Minister of Social Affairs, Yaakov Margi – a senior Shas official – warned that Netanyahu “knows that there will be no government” if Deri is not a minister. Shas is the second party in the coalition with the most seats and his departure from it would put the stability of the government at risk, which controls 64 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.