Knesset to hold discussion on immunity for Likud MK indicted for disclosing Shin Bet agent’s identity

Coalition whip Ofir Katz announces that the Knesset will hold discussions next month on granting fellow Likud MK Tally Gotliv procedural immunity following her indictment for allegedly violating the law by disclosing the identity of a Shin Bet agent.

In a statement, Katz’s spokeswoman says that Gotliv’s immunity hearings will take place June 8-9 in the Knesset House Committee, which Katz chairs.

There are two types of parliamentary immunity for MKs: substantive immunity, which applies to actions that are directly related to an MK’s official duties and mostly applies to their freedom of speech, and procedural immunity protecting MKs from being put on trial while in office, but which must be actively granted by the Knesset.

After the attorney general sends the indictment to the accused MK and to the speaker of the Knesset, the MK is given 30 days in which to request that the Knesset grant him or her immunity. When such a request is submitted, the Knesset House Committee must consider it as soon as possible.

In January 2024, Gotliv posted on social media that the partner of Shikma Bressler, a key leader of the protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul, was an agent with the security service. She is charged with violating a law forbidding publicly revealing the identity of agency agents. According to the indictment, filed in the Petah Tikva Magistrates Court, Gotliv shared the agent’s identity “in a conscious, deliberate, ongoing, demonstrative and repeated manner” to her tens of thousands of Twitter followers.