High Court weighs petition against NIS 460m. coalition fund transfers during election recess

The High Court of Justice is scrutinizing the transfer of nearly NIS 460 million in coalition funds, a move challenged by the Hiddush organization and MK Naama Lazimi. The petition argues that these transfers, made after the Knesset entered its election recess, are unlawful and constitute an election bribe. The court questioned the procedure, particularly why budget requests mixed urgent matters with non-urgent ones and the authority of the Knesset Speaker to approve such hearings.

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this was “like putting matzah on the Passover table, surrounding it with pitas, and saying the matzah makes the entire table kosher.”

During Tuesday's hearing, a three-justice panel heard arguments from Dr. Yifat Sollel, representing the petitioners, who likened the situation to making an entire table kosher with a single matzah, implying the non-urgent funds tainted the entire transfer. The State Attorney's Office, representing the finance minister, urged the court not to split the budget requests, asking for an immediate decision on the interim order that had temporarily frozen most transfers on August 5.

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The finance minister’s notice to the court sounds like a statement by a mafioso, and that is how all the budget requests unlawfully approved by the Finance Committee should also be viewed, transferring hundreds of millions of shekels in public funds to two sectors the government wishes to favor.

Petitioners accuse the government of unlawfully approving budget requests to favor specific sectors. "The finance minister’s notice to the court sounds like a statement by a mafioso," stated Sollel, Hiddush’s deputy director and legal adviser. MK Lazimi echoed this sentiment, calling the finance minister's actions a threat to the court and an attempt to hold important budgets hostage as an election bribe. She emphasized that the government must justify the urgency of every shekel transferred on the eve of elections, as required by Knesset procedures, and vowed to prevent the erosion of the Knesset's standing and the misuse of public funds.

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The finance minister is behaving like a mafioso toward the High Court judges, demanding that important budgets be held hostage together with coalition funds for sectors close to the government, as an election bribe in every sense of the word.