After the Green Light from the Haredim, the Coalition Advances Its Major Promises

After agreements on the Basic Law: Torah Study and the daycare bill, the coalition received the green light for a series of bills on the judicial overhaul, and the Knesset will convene today for an all-day legislative blitz, with the aim of completing it before the Knesset is dissolved next month.

The most significant bill expected to be approved today, in final second and third readings, is the law to remove the Police Internal Investigations Department, known as Mahash, from the State Attorney’s Office, initiated by former senior Mahash official MK Moshe Saada. If there is no last-minute change, the law will take effect as early as tomorrow after approval, and one of the most dramatic laws in the judicial reform arena will go into force. The Police Internal Investigations Department will be reestablished as an independent body, whose head will be appointed by the elected leadership, and for the first time its operations will be entirely disconnected from the State Attorney’s Office and the attorney general.

Additional bills to be brought today are intended to radically change the method of appointing senior officials in the state, so that the final word will belong to elected politicians rather than to search committees and restrictive tenders. These bills were prompted by a series of High Court rulings that prevented the government from exercising its authority to appoint senior officials in the public service, such as the Civil Service Commissioner, the head of the Shin Bet, the head of Mossad, and others. The laws to be approved today in preliminary reading will also stipulate that 100 days after a new government is sworn in, all serving senior officials will be forced to resign automatically, except for those the new government decides to keep in office.

Before these bills are brought up, the Basic Law: Torah Study will be put to a vote. Only if this law is approved will the coalition be able to bring the rest to a vote. Yesterday, as noted, the wording was agreed by the Haredi factions, following opposition from coalition elements, including the Religious Zionism faction, that the law would state that Torah study in a yeshiva is equal in status to service in the IDF.

In addition, today the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee held its first debate on preparing the bill to split the attorney general for second and third readings. The discussions are expected to continue for several weeks until the law reaches final approval in the plenum during July.