Legal expert: PM not obliged by law to disclose health issues

By DAN IZENBERG
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was not obliged by law to publish details about his state of health, according to Susie Navot, head of the constitutional law section in the law faculty of the Academic Campus of the College of Administration in Rishon Lezion. There is no currently no law on the statute books obliging him to do so. There is a private member's bill calling on him to provide such a statement annually but it has not gotten anywhere so far. However, wrote Navot, there is a "norm of government" whereby prime ministers do supply the public with information about their state of health. Such reports were published during the terms of office of Binyamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon. Navot wrote that the state of the prime minister's health was of obvious importance to the public at large. On the other hand, the prime minister should have the same right to privacy as any other citizen.