What does Bibi do to stay out of court and jail? - analysis
Chances are that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not get out of his public corruption trial and will need to convince the judges of his innocence to avoid being dethroned and imprisoned.
By YONAH JEREMY BOBPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Chances are that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not get out of his public corruption trial and will need to convince the judges of his innocence to avoid being dethroned and imprisoned. But if the unlikely happens, how might he escape his trial, due to start on March 17.• Netanyahu would need to either before or after March 17 form a government and pass a retroactive new basic law giving him immunity from continued prosecution while serving as prime minister. Currently, he waived his right to seek immunity given to each MK, so he would need to create a new right.This is not the so-called “French law,” which grants immunity to a prime minister from being indicted in the first place. Such a French law would not help Netanyahu because he was already indicted on January 28. This law would create a new immunity for Netanyahu retroactively, even though his trial has technically started. Netanyahu would want to pass this law before the middle of 2020, the earliest that witnesses are expected to be called in his trial.• If Netanyahu somehow convinced various Likud members who would likely oppose such a law (Gidon Saar and supporters), Ayelet Shaked and others to pass the law, he would also need to pass a new basic law giving the Knesset a veto over the High Court of Justice.• Because no Western democracies pass retroactive laws in criminal cases, the High Court would likely strike down Netanyahu’s new immunity law. To overcome this, he would need to empower the Knesset to veto the High Court with a bare 61-vote absolute majority. This law might be able to wait until three to six months after the new immunity law would be passed (early to mid-2021), depending on how quickly the High Court invalidated the immunity law.• The High Court might also veto the law giving the Knesset veto power over it, so Netanyahu would need to be ready to potentially ignore this ruling in the event of a constitutional crisis.• Some have also speculated that Netanyahu could try to fire Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit and order his replacement to freeze the case against him. But this likely also would be vetoed by the High Court, so the same scenario of a constitutional crisis mentioned above would ensue.
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