Bill to protect Netanyahu from forced leave of absence passes preliminary reading

A bill to prevent the attorney general or High Court of Justice from forcibly recusing the prime minister is approved 62 to 20 in its preliminary reading in the Knesset.

The preliminary approval of the bill comes following a decision by the High Court last month to hear a petition demanding Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara recuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu owing to his ostensible conflict of interests in presiding over far-reaching legal and judicial reforms while he is himself on trial for corruption.

“The voters of the national camp headed by Benjamin Netanyahu voted for him as the one to determine policy,” says Likud MK Ofir Katz in the Knesset plenum during the debate on the bill.

“They voted for his experience and his leadership as prime minister of Israel… The people and the representatives of the people are the ones who appoint the prime minister, and only they can change their choice,” continues Katz.

The bill stipulates only two ways for a prime minister to be removed from office: the prime minister informs the Knesset that they are recusing themselves, or the government recuses the prime minister in a majority vote of three-quarters of cabinet ministers, and that decision is upheld by a majority of 90 members of the Knesset.

The legislation adds that no court shall be empowered to hear a petition demanding the recusal of the prime minister, or make such a ruling.

Earlier this week, Baharav-Miara said she opposes the bill, saying it would sharply reduce the circumstances under which the recusal of a prime minister could be ordered, and warned that the proposal would create a legal “black hole.”

The Knesset House Committee will now decide which committee will prepare the bill for its first reading.