Knesset panel okays bill shielding Netanyahu from recusal for final plenum votes

21 March 2023, 9:25 pm 2 Edit

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on March 5, 2023. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool)

A special Knesset committee preliminarily approves a bill to shield prime ministers from forced recusal, barring health issues, for its final Knesset readings.

The committee, set up to discuss the bill, rejects some 300 reservations by the opposition, with the panel’s chair Ofir Katz (Likud) saying it will “preserve democracy and voters’ will” by barring the High Court and the attorney general from recusing Benjamin Netanyahu due to conflict of interest, as has been rumored could happen.

The bill is approved in a 9-6 vote and will now move to the second and third plenum readings, after which it will pass into law.