The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approves a bill to allow former health minister Yaakov Litzman to serve as deputy health minister with the authority of a full-fledged minister.
Last month, Litzman stepped down as health minister in protest over state-sanctioned train maintenance work on Shabbat.
The move sparked a small coalition crisis, which ultimately saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vow to pass this bill as part of a compromise deal.
After the green light by the committee, the bill will likely be brought to a preliminary reading in the plenum on Wednesday.
The bill marks an attempt to circumvent a 2015 High Court of Justice ruling preventing deputy ministers from fulfilling the role of ministers.
Following the ruling, then-deputy health minister Litzman accepted the full portfolio, after years of reluctance by the ultra-Orthodox community to fully partake in the cabinet of a secular Jewish state. He had received rabbinical backing to become a minister at the time, taking up the portfolio from Netanyahu.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (r) speaks with Health Minister Yaakov Litzman (l) at the Knesset on March 28, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
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