Blue and White said to weigh abandoning controversial law amid court’s criticism

The Blue and White party is considering forgoing its plans to advance an expanded version of the so-called Norwegian Law as mapped out in its unity deal with Likud, the Walla news site reports.

The second-guessing comes moments after justices knocked the legitimacy of such a law during the High Court of Justice’s ongoing hearing on the legality of the coalition deal.

The Norwegian Law allows any MK who is appointed to a cabinet post to resign temporarily from the Knesset, thereby permitting the next candidate on the party’s list to enter parliament in his or her stead.

Blue and White wants to pass an expanded version of the law that would allow it to skip lower down the list to replace an MK who has been appointed minister, because since the election, the Telem and Yesh Atid factions have split off and do not intend to join the government.

Asked whether the new coalition still plans to advance an expanded version of the Norwegian Law, which has not been submitted for a Knesset vote along with other unity deal related legislation, Blue and White attorney Shimon Bar-On told the court that this still is its intention.

Judges subsequently pressed Bar-On on how such legislation would be legal as it violates the will of the voters who cast their ballots for the list in the order it was seen on the day of elections.

He provided what they considered to be political arguments as opposed to legal ones.

As a result, Chief Justice Esther Hayut ordered Bar-On to provide a legal justification for the law within the next 24 hours. Bar-On has agreed.