Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit addressed a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today (Friday) demanding the appointment of a permanent justice minister. Mandelblit claims in his letter that “A situation in which the Ministry of Justice will be left without an incumbent minister will cause severe damage to the ministry’s work and the functioning of the government, for all that this entails.As will be recalled, the term of office of the Deputy Minister of Justice, Blue and White Chairman Bnei Gantz, will end in early April.
The ombudsman noted in his application a number of additional ministries, for which the government did not appoint a permanent minister, after the departure of the previous ministers. Among the ministries, besides the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Higher Education left by Zeev Elkin, as well as the Ministry of Water Resources. The Ministry of Social Equality, which is currently headed by Deputy Minister Itzik Shmuli, in parallel with his position as Minister of Welfare and the Ministry of Science and Technology, which was left by Yizhar Shai. Today, MK Hili Trooper serves as the deputy minister.
Mandelblit also noted that already at the beginning of the month he appealed to the government to work for the appointment of permanent ministers and that during the time that had elapsed, the term of office of Deputy Minister of Communications, Bnei Gantz, ended.
Bnei Gantz visiting Tel Aviv (Photo: Avshalom Shashoni)“As I have already clarified, a situation in which the State of Israel will be left without ministers, including without an incumbent Minister of Justice, for an unknown period, It is a very unusual and legally serious situation. In the meantime, many powers conferred on the Minister of Justice, including important and significant powers, will be left without any factor that he can exercise, “the attorney general wrote.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Bnei Gantz also turned to Netanyahu and demanded that he raise the appointment of the Minister of Justice at the cabinet meeting scheduled for Monday. “Failure to appoint a permanent justice minister will also have implications for the management of the transitional government. I will do everything in my power to prevent Netanyahu, who is affected by foreign considerations, from harming Israeli citizens, “Ganz said.