News / Palestine

Israeli regime's PM Netanyahu ordered to remove convicted minister

Wednesday, 18 January 2023 11:04 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 18 January 2023 11:04 PM ]

The Israeli regime's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The Israeli regime's supreme court has ordered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remove one of his cabinet's ministers, who has been convicted of tax evasion.

The judges came up with the verdict on Wednesday, saying Netanyahu "must remove [Aryeh] Deri from his position."

Deri, head of the ultra-orthodox party Shas, admitted last year to tax evasion, causing him to be fined 180,000 shekels ($50,000).

He subsequently resigned from Knesset (the Israeli regime's parliament), in a move that the judges said, he took to receive a lighter sentence.

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Deri ran for office again in the November polls that returned power to former premier Netanyahu.

His ministerial appointment was "in serious contradiction with the fundamental principles of the rule of law," the judges added.

Deri's Shas party called the court's decision "political," "extremely unreasonable," and "unprecedented."

Opposition politician Yair Lapid, however, warned "the Israeli government would be violating the law" if Netanyahu did not remove Deri.

"A government that does not obey the law is an illegal government and cannot expect citizens to obey the law," Lapid said in a statement.

Netanyahu announced his cabinet, featuring extreme-right and ultra-orthodox factions, last month. In order to secure the loyalty and partnership of the political parties, he has pledged to further their desired agendas. The cabinet has, therefore, been described as the most far-right one yet in the occupying regime's history.

Ever since the appointment of the cabinet, tens of thousands have marched across the occupied territories on a weekly basis against the coalition's extremist leanings.

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The demonstrators have censured planned reforms announced by the cabinet earlier this month. The so-called reforms include a "derogation clause" that allows Knesset to override the decisions that are made by the supreme court.

Netanyahu was himself indicted for receiving bribe, fraud, and breach of trust during the twilight of his previous mandate as premier in 2019. His detractors consider the so-called judicial reforms to be a vehicle for him to circumvent the repercussions of his corruption scandal.

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