Ministers to vote on bill that would allow Haredi party to rejoin government with all previous MKs rejoining Knesset

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is scheduled to vote on Sunday on a proposal by United Torah Judaism MK Yaakov Asher to amend the so-called Norwegian Law in a way that could allow the ultra-Orthodox party, along with all of its MKs who quit last summer, to rejoin Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.

The Norwegian Law allows ministers and deputy ministers from large factions to resign from the Knesset and let their seats be filled by other members of their parties. However, they can only do so once, meaning that if United Torah Judaism rejoins the coalition following a potential future successful passage of the government’s proposed bill exempting yeshiva students from military service, its newly reinstated ministers would not be able to resign to allow those lower down on the list to rejoin the Knesset in their places.

The bill would amend the law so that a faction all of whose ministers quit for a period of 30 days or more would be allowed to resign their Knesset seats for a second time after being reappointed to the cabinet.

UTJ lawmakers Moshe Roth, Yitzhak Pindrus and Eliyahu Baruchi were pushed out of the Knesset under the Norwegian Law in July after their party quit both the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition as part of an ongoing struggle over the conscription of yeshiva students.

While the party has yet to rejoin the coalition, MK Yisrael Eichler, a member of the party’s Agudat Yisrael faction, joined the government as deputy communications minister this week, allowing Pindrus of the Degel HaTorah faction to return to parliament under the Norwegian Law.

Eichler had not previously served in a ministerial capacity in this government.