Likud MK calls for shutting down High Court after it froze Knesset fund transfer on procedural grounds

Coalition lawmakers slam the High Court of Justice after it froze the transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels in budgetary allocations made by the Knesset Finance Committee yesterday to ultra-Orthodox schools, the Settlements Ministry and the Religious Services Ministry due to what it says were “apparent procedural flaws” in the convening of the committee itself.

“Yesterday Judge Sohlberg and today Judge Stein. Both entered the Supreme Court as ‘conservatives.’ The High Court of Justice is beyond repair. The High Court of Justice needs to be closed down; the solution is a Constitutional Court,” posts Knesset Finance Committee chairman Hanoch Milwidsky on X.

Milwidsky appears to be referring to yesterday’s ruling by deputy court president Noam Sohlberg, in his capacity as chairman of the Central Elections Committee, to prohibit workers and party observers in the polls on October 27 from sharing information about who has voted.

Coalition whip Ofir Katz accuses the court of going “on a completely unbridled rampage” by blocking the transfer of the coalition funds, arguing that “today they call it a procedural flaw, but when Bennett’s deceitful government made budget transfers amounting to hundreds of millions a week before the elections, that was within the Knesset’s authority.”

The ultra-Orthodox Shas party makes a similar argument, asserting that the ruling proves that the court “has become a branch of the opposition” engaged in “a serious violation of democracy and the will of the legislature.”

“The previous government transferred coalition funds in the same way about a week before the elections – and the High Court did not intervene” and “neither the law nor the procedure has changed. Only the identity of the government and the public that receives the funding,” the party says.

Meanwhile, the decision is welcomed by opposition lawmakers, with The Democrats MK Naama Lazimi, who was one of the litigants who petitioned against the transfer, welcoming the court’s halting of what she described as “political bribery” and “corrupt funding transfers.”

In late 2022, ahead of that year’s election, the Knesset Finance Committee approved an NIS 2.73 billion ($908 million) transfer of surplus funds from the 2021 budget to the 2022 budget, with much of the money going to the defense and welfare ministries. Members of the then-opposition argued that the vote to approve the transfers was illegitimate on procedural grounds while the Bennett-Lapid coalition argued it was acceptable under parliamentary rules because of the urgency of the allocation.