Deputy A-G green lights decisions, appointments within election period

Normally such decisions would be delayed until after an election, but with the transition government being in effect for over a year, Raz Nizri has given them the go-ahead.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
An empty Knesset Plenum (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
An empty Knesset Plenum
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Deputy Attorney-General for Constitutional Affairs Raz Nizri cleared the way on Thursday for government officials to make decisions and appointments during the present election period.
Usually, decisions and appointments would be put off until after the election, since transitional governments are viewed as having less authority and legitimacy, but Nizri ruled they should be waived – given that these are the third elections to be held within a year.
Nizri’s ruling comes after Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit authorized Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to make permanent appointments for the office of police chief and prisons chief, having held Erdan at bay with temporary appointments for the last year.
As in Mandelblit’s recent letter to Erdan, Nizri emphasized that waiting over a year to make such decisions was too long, and that the general rule limiting transitional governments’ powers could be overruled on a case-by-case basis.
Nizri said that government officials must still consider a transitional government as having less authority and must continue to work hard to avoid any conflict of interest emerging from an election season decision. But he gave officials the green light to push the envelope further than in ordinary circumstances in which only one round of elections had taken place.
With elections set for March 2, it is likely that by the time a new government is formed, a series of transitional governments will have been running the country for close to 18 months.