Drama In Knesset As Bill Fails To Pass After Coalition Member Mistakenly Votes For Opposition

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In a dramatic scene at the Knesset after an all-night discussion of the new Law for Rabbinical Judges, the coalition did not succeed in passing the law at its third reading after MK Miki Levi (Yesh Atid) mistakenly voted together with the opposition, leaving the result 51:51. The vote took place in the morning after the opposition had initiated a long filibuster, with Shas MKs speaking for half an hour each in order to drag out the proceedings and submit reservations to the law.

The Knesset’s legal advisor is now investigating whether the law will have to go back to the committee for a renewed vote or whether it can be brought to the plenum for the third and final vote. On a previous occasion when a member of Knesset voted with the opposition by mistake the law was resent to the committee.

The failed vote was the latest in a series of setbacks for the current Israeli government, which last week failed to pass the Reunification Law extension and on Wednesday was forced to withdraw two other bills because it couldn’t muster a majority to pass the laws.

UTJ leader Moshe Gafni said that “I said all along that a government established fraudulently and which signed that it has no part in G-d will have no Divine assistance, both with coronavirus and with the current law which fell.

The proposed bill would see a change in the makeup of the Rabbinical Judges Committee which oversees the appointment of judges. The committee would number 13 members: 2 chief rabbis, two rabbinical judges, 3 government representatives (instead of 2 at present): the Justice Minister, Religious Affairs Minister and another member of government, two lawyers from the Lawyers Association and two female rabbinical advocates (instead of one at present) chosen by the Justice Minister and Religious Affairs Minister.

The new setup would give significant power to the government representatives in the committee to determine the rabbinical judges to be appointed. At present the current division is one third Ashkenazi, one third Sefardi and one third religious Zionist judges but the current Religious Affairs minister Matan Kahana has made no secret of his wish to add more judges from a religious Zionist persuasion.