The Knesset Ministerial Committee for Legislation postponed on Sunday the decision to approve a controversial bill that would grant MKs the authority to halt the legal proceedings in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing criminal trial.
The postponement was due to Netanyahu’s opposition to the bill being applied to his personal case, The Jerusalem Post confirmed.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) reportedly pushed for the bill to be passed in the meeting, but Cabinet Secretariat Yossi Fuchs told him that Netanyahu had opposed the bill applying to him. It was at this point that it was decided to postpone the decision.
Following the meeting, Ben-Gvir said that moving forward with the bill “is a national responsibility,” and that he would continue working to advance the law regardless.
The bill, initiated by MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit), would grant members of the Knesset the authority to halt ongoing criminal proceedings.
It states that at any time after the filing of an indictment, and before the verdict is given, “a Knesset committee may suspend legal proceedings against the prime minister or any minister it deems necessary.”
“Upon the submission of such a notice, the court shall halt the proceedings in that case,” the proposal reads.
It adds that this will be in addition to the attorney-general’s existing power to suspend proceedings, allowing the Knesset committee to have “parallel authority.”
The bill sparked controversy, as Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara slammed it on Sunday, saying it “allows political considerations to encroach on criminal proceedings.”
“It is a personal proposal intended to shield the prime minister from the consequences of the law. It undermines the foundations of the democratic system, is unconstitutional, and should not be advanced,” she added.
In a letter to Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Likud), the legal advisory wrote that the bill is “a dangerous opening to allowing political considerations to affect a criminal investigation.”
“This harms the integrity of the criminal process, equality before the law, and the independence of the judiciary and the law enforcement system,” an opinion penned by Deputy Attorneys-General Avital Sompolinsky and Sharon Afek read.
There is a clause in criminal law that grants an attorney-general the power, under specific circumstances, to delay criminal proceedings via a handwritten letter to the court.
The proposal is designed to change this clause to expand this power to a Knesset committee, which the legal advisory wrote is “in itself a political body with an inherent majority... The proposal constitutes elements of a political-sectoral nature that would intervene in a criminal procedure.”
Ben-Gvir says A-G's 'irony knows no bounds'
Ben-Gvir criticized Baharav-Miara in return, saying, “The irony knows no bounds: The attorney-general, who has completely politicized the law enforcement system, constantly targets public officials with fabricated cases, and regularly cripples the work of the government, now claims that the bill submitted by Har-Melech is a political proposal, when in fact it is intended to protect public officials from political persecution.”
“I hope my colleagues on the Ministerial Committee for Legislation will not be intimidated by yet another attempt by the A-G to obstruct the government’s work, and will vote unanimously in favor of advancing it,” he added ahead of the meeting.
MK Benny Gantz (Blue and White) voiced his strong opposition to the bill in a Sunday video statement.
“Giving a political body a license to stop a trial paves the path to a country with one law for the ‘masters’ and another for the ‘subjects,’” he said.
“Do you think that our citizens don’t understand what you’re doing?” Gantz questioned. “You don’t want to fix the justice system. You want to tame it for your own needs. That will not happen.”
The approval of the bill would have been another escalation amid mounting efforts to halt Netanyahu’s criminal corruption trial, which began in 2020 and is currently in the cross-examination stage.
Separately, a Sunday letter, signed by several high-ranking ministers and addressed to President Isaac Herzog, detailed what it called the societal calamities caused by Netanyahu’s trial, implying that the president should use his power to grant the prime minister a pardon.
A pardon cannot be issued while a criminal process is ongoing and must be requested by the defendant.
Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in three cases -1000, 2000, and 4000 - on the charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. His trial began in 2020, during which the prime minister pleaded not guilty to all three counts. Bribery is the heaviest accusation of the three.
Once the prosecution concludes, the judges will convene to author a verdict. This is expected to take at least a year.