Netanyahu wants cabinet sworn in by Thursday

The debate will continue on Wednesday morning, culminating in votes on the bill’s final readings late that night.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN, YONAH JEREMY BOB
Netanyahu speaking at Knesset, May 4, 2015 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Netanyahu speaking at Knesset, May 4, 2015
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to inform his Likud ministers which portfolios they will receive late on Wednesday night in an effort to swear in his cabinet the next day, sources close to him said on Tuesday night.
Marathon Knesset deliberations on a bill to enable expanding the cabinet continued into the night on Tuesday after MKs bickered through Monday night until the bill passed in committee at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
The debate will continue on Wednesday morning, culminating in votes on the bill’s final readings late that night.
Only after that will Netanyahu start meeting with his ministers.
“The formation of the current government has proven that the coalition system in Israel makes it impossible to endure a limit of 18 ministers,” coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin told the Knesset. “Such a limit harms the stability and flexibility required for governing.”
MK Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid), a former welfare minister, said Netanyahu had only himself to blame for initiating an election that was intended to bring stability.
“When you treat people as if they were your subject and yourself as if you are part of a dynasty, anything is permissible,” Cohen said.
Once the government is formed, Bayit Yehudi faction head Ayelet Shaked will become justice minister. At a meeting on Tuesday with Romania’s Justice Minister Robert Cazanciuc, Shaked said that “we are proud of our Supreme Court,” and called it one of the most admired worldwide.
At the same time, Shaked told Cazanciuc that the country is hotly debating how activist and interventionist the Supreme Court should be in nullifying Knesset legislation as well as how justices should be chosen.
The court should be more conservative about intervention, she said.
Cazanciuc told Shaked that Romania’s politicians have no role in making appointments to its Supreme Court, but that politicians are involved in appointments to a separate Romanian special constitutional court – something Israel does not have.