Jerusalem CNN –
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled 10-1 on Wednesday that Arie Deri, leader of the Shas party and a key ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, should not be allowed to serve as a cabinet minister because of a February 2022 tax fraud conviction.
Netanyahu must remove Deri from his post, the court ruled. Such a move would plunge the country into a political crisis.
Derry’s Shas party – which won 11 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, in November and is a key component of Netanyahu’s coalition – immediately hit back, calling the ruling “arbitrary and unprecedented”.
The Sephardic religious party said the court “today rejected the votes and votes of 400,000 voters of the Shas movement.”
“Today the court effectively ruled that the elections are meaningless. The court’s decision is political and tainted,” the party said.
The Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether it was legally reasonable to appoint Deri to posts in Netanyahu’s cabinet despite his conviction for tax fraud
The judges decided that his appointment “cannot stand”.
“This is due, among other things, to his accumulated criminal convictions” and his failure to withdraw from public life, as he said he would do when he is convicted in the tax fraud case.
The main legal question is whether Derry’s conviction for tax fraud constitutes a moral turpitude. This would disqualify him from government until the November election.
But Netanyahu and his allies changed the law after his election victory, clearing the way for Derry to become a minister.
Derry was a member of the Knesset at the time of his conviction for tax fraud last year.
He resigned as an MP rather than give the head of the electoral commission a chance to rule on whether the conviction disqualified him from serving as a minister.
This means that the legal question of whether Derry’s fraud conviction counts as a crime of moral turpitude remains unresolved.
Deri’s allies signaled this week that the Shas party leader would not resign from his ministerial post even if the court ruling goes against him.
In a statement to party members gathered at his house, Derry on Wednesday said he would “continue the revolution even stronger with more force,” without elaborating.
His refusal to resign – or Netanyahu’s refusal to fire him – potentially creates a constitutional crisis pitting the government against the Supreme Court.
Netanyahu and his coalition partners have 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, a majority of four. Derry’s Shas party holds 11 of those 64 seats, so vacating Derry would throw the government into crisis.
On Wednesday evening local time, Netanyahu was seen visiting the Derry home, spending about 45 minutes inside before leaving again. Netanyahu did not comment to journalists who were outside.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin – a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party – promised to intervene on Deri’s behalf.
“I will do whatever it takes to ensure that the gross injustice done to Rabbi Aryeh Deri, to the Shas movement and to Israeli democracy is fully rectified,” Levin said.
Levin has already announced plans to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, giving the Knesset the power to overturn Supreme Court decisions and review court nominations.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut – who was among the 10 judges who ruled on Wednesday for Netanyahu to fire Deri – last week called the proposed changes “an unbridled attack on the legal system”.
Israel has been roiled by political instability in recent years, with Netanyahu narrowly winning Israel’s fifth election in less than four years in November.
Netanyahu, who was sworn in as prime minister for the sixth time in his career in late December, has remained the dominant figure in a period of prolonged political chaos.
His last government will probably be the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
Itamar Ben Gvir, an extremist who was convicted of supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, became minister of national security. Bezalel Smotrich, who supported the abolition of the Palestinian Authority and the annexation of the West Bank, became finance minister.
Netanyahu’s latest term in office got off to a rocky start, with tens of thousands of people protesting in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on January 14 against his government’s proposed changes to Israel’s judiciary.
Attendees held placards comparing Netanyahu to Russian President Vladimir Putin and saying Israel was turning into a semi-democratic Hungary and a theocratic Iran.
The protesters told CNN they came out of fear for Israel’s future and to send a message to Netanyahu that society will not accept what they see as the destruction of Israeli democracy.
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