Knesset legal adviser says Netanyahu trial must wait till immunity decision

The Knesset’s top legal adviser, Eyal Yinon, issues a legal opinion that may delay Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial for several months.

Netanyahu faces charges in three corruption cases, but is permitted 30 days (starting today) to ask the Knesset for parliamentary immunity. The forum that is legally empowered to consider his immunity request is the Knesset House Committee. But the committee has no members, as the assignment of committee posts between the parliament’s factions is usually carried out as part of a broader coalition negotiations process, and no one has yet succeeded in negotiating such a coalition following the April and September elections. The House Committee thus has no members.

Yinon was asked by Blue and White MK Avi Nissenkorn whether the Knesset’s Arrangements Committee, a temporary parliamentary committee formed after each election in which committee assignments are divvied up, can consider the immunity request instead of the House Committee.

Nissenkorn chairs the Arrangements Committee.

In his opinion, Yinon says the Arrangements Committee cannot take on any of the legal powers given to the House Committee, in part because it is by definition a temporary body with a limited mandate.

Instead, he says, Netanyahu’s immunity request, if it comes, can only be considered by a fully-staffed House Committee, whenever such a committee is formed. And crucially: Netanyahu’s indictment in all three corruption cases will not take place until the committee gives its opinion.

The bottom line appears to be this: No charges can be filed until a majority in the parliament agrees on staffing the Knesset House Committee, which likely won’t happen until a broader coalition is in place that can reach decisions with the opposition factions on staffing all the committees.

If the current Knesset can’t form a coalition by December 11, Israel goes to new elections in March, after which a new coalition will have to be negotiated over the ensuing weeks.

Even if the Knesset refuses to grant Netanyahu immunity, he likely just won several months’ freeze on the start of his corruption trial.