Elections panel chairman will not rule on Deri appeal

Former Shas leader now expected to ask president for clemency so he can run for Jerusalem mayor.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS AND MATTHEW WAGNER
aryeh deri looking jaunty 248.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski )
aryeh deri looking jaunty 248.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski )
The chairman of the Central Elections Committee said Wednesday he has no authority to determine whether former Shas chairman Aryeh Deri can run for Jerusalem mayor on November 11. "The issue does not fall within the role of the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, and apparently is beyond his authority," former Supreme Court justice Eliezer Rivlin wrote in a two-page decision. Former interior minister Deri had appealed to Rivlin to allow him to run for mayor even though the seven-year ban on him entering politics since being released from prison has not passed. Deri completed 22 months of a three-year sentence in Maasiyahu Prison for accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust in July 2002. By law, anyone who has been convicted of a crime that bears "moral turpitude" - such as Deri's offenses - cannot run for political office until seven years after his release from prison. The seven-year period ends next summer. To run, Deri would need to argue that the law does not apply to his case because the seven-year waiting period was approved after his prison term began. In a letter to Rivlin, Deri's attorney, Zvi Agmon, argued that the seven-year ban was not relevant since when Deri was convicted there was a six-year ban in force. "The right to vote and to be elected is an unalienable right of every citizen," Agmon wrote. "The ban on political activity is another form of punishment in addition to the other punishments, including imprisonment, meted out to my client. "On the day that my client was convicted it was as if a heavenly voice declared, 'The law bans you from elections for six years.' "The question being asked is whether my client should be given a punishment that was enacted well after the first verdict in his case was handed down in April 1999, after the appeal in August 2000, and even after he began his prison sentence in September 2000." A Deri spokesman said, in response to Rivlin's decision, that since the judge did not accept juristiction, Deri is now consulting with his legal advisors to decide what the best legal course of action is. Deri is expected to file an appeal with President Shimon Peres for clemency so that he can run for mayor. Peres would then ask Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann for his opinion, and, notwithstanding the minister's position, the president would make a final decision on his own. Government watchdog groups have pledged to petition the High Court of Justice against any move allowing Deri to run. But Israel Radio's chief legal analyst Moshe Negbi said the court was unlikely to overturn a Peres decision granting Deri clemency since it usually didn't interfere with presidents' decisions. "It really boils down to Peres's decision," Negbi said. Also on Wednesday, a source close to Deri said that if he were allowed to run, his mayoral campaign would focus on keeping the capital undivided and would emphasize the ex-Shas head's ability to bring together diverse segments of Jerusalem's populace. "Only Deri is capable of bringing harmony to a city skewed by the competing interests of secular and religious, Jews and Arabs," the source said. "We are going to emphasis all the things he did for the Arab sector as interior minister, and for dozens of municipalities and regional councils across the nation."