Knesset legal adviser to step down after spat over PM’s cases

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on Thursday decided not to extend the tenure of the parliament’s legal adviser, Eyal Yinon, after 10 years, the Knesset spokesperson’s office said in a statement.

The statement said Yinon will end his tenure at the end of the month, and that the acting Knesset legal adviser starting April 1 will be Sagit Afik, who has been the legal adviser to the Knesset’s Finance Committee for the past 15 years.

Since Israel is currently ruled by an interim government, it cannot appoint a new full-time legal adviser.

Afik earned a master’s degree in law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1999 she became an assistant to the attorney general, and she has been on the Finance Committee’s legal team since 2001.

The statement said Edelstein thanked Yinon for his “dedicated work,” wished Afik luck and praised her previous work.

Yinon has recently been involved in the political drama surrounding the decision to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after he ruled in January that Edelstein does not have the right to prevent the Knesset plenum from forming a panel that would immediately discuss — and likely would have rejected — Netanyahu’s request for parliamentary immunity from corruption charges.

Netanyahu’s Likud party had fumed at Yinon over that decision, and filed a High Court petition seeking to disqualify him from dealing with matters related to the prime minister’s corruption cases due to a “serious conflict of interest” stemming from the fact that his wife, Amit Merari, is part of the team of prosecutors who worked on those cases.

Yinon had acknowledged the conflict of interest, but said his legal opinion had no bearing on the actual cases against Netanyahu or the expected immunity proceedings in the Knesset.

Netanyahu announced on January 1 that he would seek Knesset immunity from prosecution, submitting the request hours before the legal deadline. But he had anticipated the matter would only be debated in the next Knesset term, after this week’s election.

The premier ended up pulling his immunity request when it became clear it was going to be rejected.

Netanyahu, in November, became the first sitting prime minister with charges against him when Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced he would indict the prime minister for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The trial is due to begin March 17. Netanyahu denies the charges and claims he is the victim of an attempted “political coup” involving the opposition, media, police and state prosecutors.