AG slams ‘flawed’ law benefiting Deri ally in Tiberias mayoral race

Baharav-Miara says law, frozen since last week, ‘sets legal situation backward,’ unfairly benefits incumbents, and should not be implemented at upcoming vote on October 31

By ToI Staff 27 July 2023, 7:55 am

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Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara arrives to attend the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, July 9, 2023. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP)

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Wednesday issued an opinion slamming a law passed earlier this month that would void a requirement that caretaker mayors take a break before running for election, saying the law provides an unfair advantage to such candidates and should not be implemented in upcoming municipal votes.

The legislation, frozen by the High Court of Justice last week, cancels the one-term cooling-off period for acting mayors and other local officials appointed to fill governing roles before they can run for a full term in office.

Sponsored by Likud MK Amit Halevi, the law was widely seen as personally tailored to aid Boaz Yosef, the acting mayor of Tiberias, who would otherwise be barred from running in an upcoming contest for the post. Yosef is an associate of the leader of the coalition’s Shas party, Aryeh Deri.

The requirement for a cooling-off period was introduced in 2008 to keep unelected officials from enjoying the advantages of an incumbent.

The measure is “flawed,” Baharav Miara wrote to the High Court, adding that it raised “significant difficulties.”

The attorney general said the bill “sets the legal situation backward because it violates important public principles and interests, responsibility, professionalism, and neutrality of the public service, and public trust in these systems.”

File: Tiberias Acting Mayor Boaz Yosef on the city promenade, May 15, 2022. (Michael Giladi/Flash90)

Baharav-Miara stressed the importance of the “severance of political affiliation” of the committee that fills the caretaker positions since it is a process that “forfeits the right to vote for residents while interfering in local autonomy and democracy.”

She also said the law gives an unfair advantage to the incumbent acting mayor and “raises a significant concern of damaging the equality between the candidates and the right to choose and be elected,” she wrote.

She added that it was a personalized law “to change the rules of the game for a specific actor,” in an apparent reference to Yosef.

Yosef has served as Tiberias’s acting mayor since 2020 when he was appointed by Deri, then interior minister, after mayor Ron Kobi was removed from office.

A petition was filed against the law by Yosef’s rival in the Tiberias race, Shani Illouz, as well as several other organizations.

Following that petition, the High Court issued a temporary injunction and will convene to discuss the matter on July 30.

Shas chair Aryeh Deri (right) speaks to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich at a vote on the “reasonableness” bill at the assembly hall of the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on July 24, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Yosef’s lawyer, Ilan Bombach, said in a statement that Baharv-Miara’s opinion was “unfortunate and mistaken.”

Municipal elections are slated for October 31.

Baharav-Miara presented her position to Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, of Shas, who said her arguments had “no basis.”

Arbel said that the bill was a policy decision made by the Knesset and vowed it will go into effect for the upcoming vote.

The coalition has been accused of pushing legislation tailored to benefit certain individuals, including Deri, in the past.

Deri was forced out of his positions as health minister and interior minister in January after the High Court ruled that his appointment was “unreasonable in the extreme.”

The coalition passed a law on Monday stripping judges of the ability to use a so-called reasonableness test to overturn governing decisions. The law was the first part of the government’s divisive legislative package to overhaul the judiciary.