Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday sacked a senior minister recently convicted of tax fraud to comply a Supreme Court ruling which disqualified the minister and shook the right-wing government just weeks after coming to power.
By complying with the court ruling to remove Minister Aryeh Deri, Mr Netanyahu avoided an immediate, frontal clash with the judiciary at a time when the country is already locked in a heated debate government plans for a judicial review. Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest plans to curtail the powers of the judiciary, seen by many as a challenge to Israel’s democratic system. About 130,000 protesters came out in Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday night, according to Israeli media.
“I am forced, with a heavy heart, great sadness and a very difficult feeling, to remove you from your position as minister in the government,” Mr Netanyahu wrote in a letter to Mr Deri, which the prime minister read at his weekly cabinet meeting, in the presence of Mr Deri.
“I intend to look for a legal way so that you can continue to contribute to the State of Israel with your vast experience and skills in accordance with the will of the people,” Mr Netanyahu added.
Mr Netanyahu condemned the Supreme Court order as “a regrettable decision that ignores the will of the people”. Mr Deri’s dismissal will take effect in the next 48 hours.
But Mr Netanyahu himself in court for corruptionfaces the awkwardness on how to compensate Mr Deri, the leader of Shas, an ultra-orthodox Sephardic party and a close political ally whose support is key to the stability and survival of the coalition government.
After the letter was read, Mr Deri told the cabinet, “I have an iron obligation to the 400,000 people who voted for me and Shas,” according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster. “No court judgment will prevent me from serving and representing them,” he said, adding, “I intend to continue to do my utmost to serve the public and the coalition.”
A veteran politician, Mr Deri was one of the most experienced and politically moderate ministers in what has grown to be the most far-right and religiously conservative coalition in Israel’s history. The 11 seats Shas won in November’s election are crucial for the government’s majority in the 120-seat parliament; the coalition parties together have 64 seats.
In another sign of the troubles Mr Netanyahu’s fledgling government is already facing, a far-right party, Religious Zionism, boycotted Sunday’s cabinet meeting in protest at a decision by the defense minister on Friday to demolish a rampant outpost bringing settlers to the occupied West Bank territories. Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich demanded authority over such actions as part of his coalition deal with Mr Netanyahu, but devolving such authority from the defense minister and the military would require legislation and is not yet in force.
Mr Deri has served as Home and Health Minister despite his conviction last year and a suspended sentence imposed under a plea agreement. Ten of the 11 judges in Israel’s highest court ruled against Mr Deri’s appointment on what the judges called “extreme inappropriateness,” largely because of his recent case.
The panel also considered a previous conviction in 1999 when Mr Deri was found guilty of charges of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust while serving as legislator and cabinet minister. For this he served two years of a three-year prison sentence and was excluded from public and political life for several years after his release.
The judges also noted that Mr Deri, then an opposition MP, had told the court as part of his plea agreement last year that he was giving up political life and resigning from Parliament. Then Mr. Deri ran again in the November elections.
The judges argued that Mr Deri’s lawyers had attempted to mislead the Supreme Court as to the terms of the plea agreement, claiming there had been a misunderstanding and that he had no intention of terminating outright.
Mr. Deri, 63, was born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel with his family as a child. He was one of the founders of Shas in the 1980s and became Home Secretary in Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s government after standing in the 1988 elections.
At 29, Mr. Deri was the youngest minister in Israel’s history. In 1993, after being accused of taking bribes, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that an accused politician could not serve as a minister. After his release from prison in 2002, he had to take an almost ten-year sabbatical and returned to the political scene in 2011.
There was no immediate indication that this recent cessation of Mr Deri’s tenure as minister would overthrow the government, despite previous threats from other Shas politicians.
Mr Deri is allowed to remain lawmaker and continues to lead his party. Other Shas politicians with similar views are likely to fill ministerial posts he vacates, but analysts said Mr Deri would continue to call government affairs involving the party’s other ministers and lawmakers.
To accommodate Mr Deri, some analysts have suggested that Mr Netanyahu could keep him as an observer in the cabinet, or that government lawmakers could vote for their own dissolution and then immediately form a new government that would include Mr Deri in an “alternative” Prime Minister – an appointment that experts say would be harder for judges to block.
Shas draws much of his support from, and promises to strengthen, working-class, traditional and orthodox Jews from across the Middle East and North Africa. Shortly after Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling, Mr Deri said he was more determined than ever to “continue the revolution”.
“They close the door in front of us, so we will enter through the window. They close the window to us so we can break through the ceiling,” he said in an apparent reference to justice.
The new government wants to make a number of changes that would weaken the power of the judiciary.
The proposals include one that would give the government the upper hand in selecting judges and another that would limit the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn laws passed in Parliament.
This measure would allow Parliament to overrule such court decisions with the narrowest majority of 61 MPs out of 120. The government also wants to remove the ability of Supreme Court justices to use the vaguely defined ethical standard of “unreasonableness” to strike down laws, government decisions or appointments.
The court ruling disqualifying Mr Deri has only deepened divisions in Israel over the proposed judicial changes and strengthened the resolve of supporters of the changes, who say they are necessary to correct a power imbalance between the Supreme Court and politicians by the influence of unelected judges in favor of the elected government.
Critics say the proposed changes would weaken the independence of the Supreme Court, severely limit judicial oversight and remove protections for minorities, turning Israel into a nominal democracy where the majority rules unhindered.
“Now is the dark hour. Now is the moment to stand up and shout,” David Grossman, a leading Israeli author and a liberal voice, told the crowd at the Tel Aviv protests on Saturday night.
