NGO seeks injunction against appointment of Deri, Galant to cabinet

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel filed a petition Sunday asking the Supreme Court to issue a temporary injunction against the appointments of Aryeh Deri (Shas) and Yoav Galant (Kulanu) as ministers in the new government.

The petition against Deri argues that on account of his convictions for bribery with moral turpitude, he should not be allowed to assume office as minister of the economy, nor as minister of development in the Negev and the Galilee.

The complaint against Galant argues that he is unfit for his position due to his involvement in a 2010 scandal that saw him accused of seizing public lands that would eventually be the site of his new home. Galant had been in the running to become the next IDF chief of General Staff, but his candidacy was withdrawn amid speculation over his complicity in the appropriation. At the time, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein told Prime Minister Netanyahu he could not back his appointment to the IDF’s top spot.

A planning committee cleared him of some of the accusations in 2012.

“The granting of an injunction, which would stay the appointment of Galant to his role as minister of construction and Deri as minister of the economy, should at the least prevent Galant from dealing with matters pertaining to the Israel Lands Authority (ILA) and Deri from dealing with the appointment of judges to labor courts and from implementing his authority in financial and budgetary matters of the ministries,” the Movement for Quality Government said in a statement.

The movement further asserted that such an injunction was necessary “in order to protect the public interest in the period before a decision is reached on the petition and to prevent the anticipated violation of public trust in the government, the rule of law and the integrity of civil services.”

The organization’s argument reflects recent legal opinions of the attorney general, who said that despite there being no legal impediments to Deri’s appointment as a minister at this point, “this is a decision that arouses legal difficulties due to Deri’s onerous criminal past and the harm to the public’s trust in the administration’s morality and the correctness of its actions, which Deri’s appointment as a minister is liable to cause.”

Weinstein’s concerns are primarily based on two earlier cases in the Supreme Court, including the 1993 blocking of Yossi Ginosar to the position of director general of the Housing and Construction Ministry. In 2007, Haim Ramon was nearly prevented from taking a ministerial position because of an earlier sexual harassment conviction.