A-G to Netanyahu: Convicted criminal Aryeh Deri can’t be appointed minister

Shas head Aryeh Deri received a year’s suspended sentence in a plea deal that saw him quit the previous Knesset.

Israeli Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara is preparing to block the appointment of Shas head and convicted criminal MK Aryeh Deri as a minister, N12 reported on Friday evening.

The veteran leader of the Shas Party resigned from the last Knesset as part of a plea deal agreed struck with then-attorney-general Avichai Madelblit, which saw Deri admit to minor tax offenses and pay a NIS 180,000 fine as he received a suspended sentence of one year.

Due to Deri’s Knesset resignation, Mandeblit said he would not seek a finding of moral turpitude that could block him from running for the next Knesset, which he did. Deri previously served 22 months in Maasiyahu Prison after he was convicted of bribery in 2000, during his tenure as interior minister.

Now, as he is set to return to the government under prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud head was notified by the A-G that Deri could not be legally appointed minister without the approval of the Central Elections Committee head.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Gali Baharav Miara attends a conference of the Israeli chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), in Tel Aviv, earlier this year.

Constrained by the rulebook
As per article 6 of Basic Law: The Government, “a minister convicted of an offense who has been sentenced to imprisonment, and on the day of his appointment seven years have not gone by since he ended serving the punishment of imprisonment, or from the day that the sentence was delivered, whichever is later, shall not be appointed as minister.”

It was previously reported by N12 that Netanyahu’s new government will seek to bypass this article by claiming that since Deri only received a suspended sentence, and that more than seven years had passed since he served actual prison time, Deri can therefore legally be appointed minister.

There have also been talks of amending the article to reflect its claimed irrelevance to suspended sentences, the report added. MK Moshe Arbel, of Shas, submitted a bill to the Knesset Secretary on Thursday that would allow the appointment of his party chairman to the position of minister, the MK said.