Knesset Legal Adviser Urges Court to Reject Petitions Against State Comptroller Appointment

The Knesset’s legal adviser, attorney Sagit Apik, has asked the High Court of Justice to dismiss petitions challenging the procedure that elected Michael Ravilo as state comptroller. In a preliminary response filed on June 16, 2026, Apik argued that there is no substantial evidence that lawmakers were instructed to record how they voted, and said there is no clear legal ban on documenting a vote behind the privacy screen.

The response addressed several claims raised against the election process, including the allegation that MKs were told to photograph their ballots, concerns that such documentation undermined ballot secrecy, the legal adviser’s earlier position that phones should have been barred from the voting booth, and claims of a conflict of interest involving Ravilo. The office said the conflict-of-interest arguments should have been raised before the vote, not after Ravilo won.

According to the Knesset legal adviser, no convincing evidence was found that any instruction, demand, or request was issued to lawmakers to document their vote. Officials said those allegedly behind such an instruction denied it, and the fact that some MKs did record their vote does not prove that a directive existed. At the same time, the response warned that if such an instruction had in fact been given, it would have been a very serious act with possible implications for the validity of the entire election.

The legal adviser also said that, given the unusual circumstances of the comptroller election, the Knesset legal office had at the time supported banning phones from the ballot area, but that this was not issued as binding legal guidance and was not accepted. The office added that coalition and opposition representatives had reached what it called a “three-part arrangement” to cancel the second vote, have the Speaker state that any instruction to document votes was invalid, and rerun the election without banning phones. It said that agreement carried significant weight as long as it was not unlawful. Former Supreme Court justice Yosef Elron, who ran against Ravilo, asked on Sunday to freeze the appointment, arguing the second ballot was illegal. Netanyahu and Likud also defended the election, calling overturning a secret vote by the Knesset an extreme and unprecedented remedy.