Aryeh Deri’s disqualification as cabinet minister comes after his outrageous decision to stay in politics despite pledging to leave public life.
If you lie, you have to pay! This is the crux of what the Supreme Court said in its ruling on Wednesday when they struck down Aryeh Deri’s appointment as a cabinet minister.
When he did lie? When he was convicted for the first time in 1999 for bribery and then for the second time in 2022, when he was found guilty of tax evasion. The third lie was the day after the second conviction, which was the most outrageous of all lies: He said that he had never actually meant to pledge to leave elected office when he did just that before the lower court.
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He tried to outsmart the system by saying that while he was resigning from the Knesset at the time, he could continue being involved in politics and run for office again.
As the court said in its majority opinion, “The charade that he put on about leaving elected office and then his about-face right after, raise questions on whether he was acting in good faith make it very hard to approve his appointment, as well as complicate the unreasonable nature of having him serve.”
Deri lied, but does is it the court’s job to disqualify him over this? It’s not clear. In the lower court, Deri was convicted and was told that it was up to the Central Elections Committee to decide if his convictions carry moral turpitude. But Deri and Prime Minister Netanyahu did not want to go through that route and instead opted to amend the law through fast-track legislation. This was legal but had a foul smell to it.
The Right must realize that it can’t have it both ways: Don’t use Basic Laws as playdoh that can be molded at will and then cry foul when the Supreme Court for doing the very same thing. Basic Laws are either sacred or not.
In these circumstances, we must look at the minority opinion in the ruling. Rather than joining the majority, Justice Yosef Elron said Deri must ask the Central Elections Committee to decide whether his sentence for tax evasion carries moral turpitude. It’s likely that the answer to that would have been yes, and we would have reached the same result. But it would have still been better had the majority embraced this position and let the process play itself out.
Deri is right that he has had a miscarriage of justice in his trial. Any ordinary person would have just paid a fee to the tax authorities. But in his case, the system raised the stakes so high that it could not back down and settle this on some procedural grounds. The prosecution didn’t seek justice; it wanted to save face.
Having said all that, Deri should have not resorted to manipulation and deceit, and neither should he disregard the ruling from Wednesday. What he can do is continue with the judicial reforms he has been promoting as if this ruling was never made. In fact, it is essential that the two things are handled separately so that the government’s actions don’t appear to be construed as a means of whitewashing liars.
@Sebastien Zorn
Israel has many more problems than “Aharon Barak’s judicial revolution”, and the solutions they require are much more complex than simply “undoing Aharon Barak’s judicial revolution”.
Israel will certainly complete its conversion to a banana republic if it lets the criminals to completely take over the government and force the Knesset to gut the judicial system to help them escape punishment.
@Reader
Debatable. The jury’s still out. Was back then, though. Until Aharon Barak’s judicial revolution is completely undone, Israel looks exactly like a banana republic. I would say the same for the US, Canada, Australia, and Western Europe. Same unpatriotic crowd.
@Sebastien Zorn
What makes you assume those charges were not genuine?
Israel, after all, is not a banana republic (yet), you have to give its justice system a little credit.
Besides, I can kind of understand your attachment to your favorite political players (Trump and Netanyahu) who, as far as you are concerned, can do no wrong but since when did you take to admiring Deri who actually served time in jail and whose reputation was never particularly good, even before he was jailed?
The whole system needs revamping because this whole affair would never have happened if someone under indictment or someone who perjured himself by lying about his intent to stay in politics were either:
1) barred from participating in elections AND/OR
2) arrested and forced to leave the Knesset after doing what they did and disobeying the High Court and the Attorney General.
@Reader What makes you assume the”tax evasion” charges were any more genuine than the “corruption” charges against Bibi or Trump?
I think some people will have to be led out of the Knesset in handcuffs, some in straightjackets, and some – in both.
The sad part that not only these characters will feel entitled to stay there ’til the bitter end, they actually have many supporters who lack any morals or decency and many of those supporters even claim to be “religious”.
Beautiful maneuver.
https://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/preoccupied-territory-blogs/court-ordered-to-fire-minister-deri-bibi-to-nominate-him-as-supreme-court-justice/2023/02/06/
Coalition considering electing him Knesset Speaker which would pose no legal impediment.