Israel's top court hears case on Netanyahu's eligibility to serve while indicted
Israeli law explicitly requires cabinet ministers to resign if indicted, but not a sitting PM
Israel's Supreme Court began deliberations on Tuesday on whether an indicted parliament member can form a new government, hearing a petition that could potentially abruptly end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political career after March elections.
Netanyahu is Israel's first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime. His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, was forced to resign a decade ago ahead of a corruption indictment that later sent him to prison for 16 months.
If the court decides Netanyahu is ineligible, it could precipitate a constitutional crisis in Israel, and exacerbate the already tenuous ties between the Israeli government and judiciary.
The court in Jerusalem did not hand down an immediate ruling and gave no indication on whether it would deliberate further or reject the petition outright. Given the sensitivity, it may ask for a full panel of the court to convene on the matter. Either way, it was wading into uncharted territory.
Israeli law requires cabinet ministers and mayors to resign if indicted, but does not specify so for a sitting prime minister. There are no restrictions on Netanyahu to run in the March 2 election — the third in less than a year — but good governance groups are appealing on whether he could be tasked with forming a new government if he emerges victorious.
"We claimed that the head of the executive authority can't be a person who is in conflict of interest between his personal interests and the interests that we, as the public, need," argued Dafna Holtz-Lechner, the lawyer leading the petition.
Request for immunity likely
Given the shaky legal ground, the court could deem the scenario hypothetical and delay the case until the situation presents itself.
Avi Halevy, a lawyer for Netanyahu, called it a "political petition."
"Those deciding in the state of Israel and in democracy who will serve as prime minister, according to any system, are the people and only the people," he said. "We of course hope it will be Benjamin Netanyahu."
The hearing comes as Netanyahu appears poised to seek immunity from corruption charges, delaying the prospect of a trial until the elections, when he hopes to have a parliamentary majority coalition that will shield him from prosecution.
The request for immunity is likely to languish under the current parliament. Normally, a request for immunity would need to be approved by a parliamentary committee and then submitted to a full vote. But the committee charged with handling such matters doesn't exist because a government was never formed after September's election. The attorney general cannot file the indictment until the question of immunity is settled, delaying any court proceedings.
Netanyahu, re-elected last week as leader of the ruling Likud party, has long accused judicial and law enforcement officials of trying to drive him from office and has said only the voters can choose who will lead the country. His allies have issued stern warnings against what they call an "activist" court overstepping its authority, and a few dozen pro-Netanyahu protesters convened outside the court in Jerusalem.
Watch: From Nov. 22: Netanyahu indicted
Netanyahu has been in power for more than a decade and is Israel's longest-serving leader. He was indicted last month on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust stemming from three cases of trading political and regulatory favours for positive media coverage and accepting lavish gifts from wealthy supporters.
Netanyahu has dismissed the allegations as an "attempted coup" and has vowed to battle them from the prime minister's office.