Court rejects ministers’ request to delay Netanyahu trial

The judges presiding over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial rejected on Monday a request by 12 ministers from the National Security Cabinet to delay the prime minister’s testimony, which will begin on Tuesday morning.

In their ruling the judges, Jerusalem Regional Court judges Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar’am, and Oded Shacham, wrote, “According to law, managing the trial is done by the sides to the trial, and by them alone. No normative basis was laid to sway from this in this case. As such, the request will not lead to a change of the dates that were set to conduct the procedure.”

The judges decided in an earlier ruling that Netanyahu is set to testify three times a week, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, for six hours each day. The judges added that specific scheduling requests would be treated individually.

Court disagrees

According to the request, which was sent in the form of a letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and to the Director of the Court Authority, Judge Tzahi Uziel, the ministers argued that the court’s demands on Netanyahu would “unequivocally” constitute “severe harm to the state's security.”

“Anyone who ignores this severe warning may be found responsible for security failures, and history will judge them for it. We demand that you urgently reconsider the conduct of the judicial system regarding the management of the Prime Minister's legal proceedings and find a solution that will allow him to fulfill his central role in leading the State of Israel at this critical time,” the ministers wrote.

“There is no place for considerations detached from reality when the security of the state and national resilience are at stake,” they added.

“We request that you bring this letter to the attention of the panel of judges and summon the relevant security officials to present the implications and current security aspects confidentially before the judges,” the ministers concluded.

After the request was rejected, Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Yariv Levin said, “The legal proceedings against Prime Minister Netanyahu, from the very start of the investigation, have been a long and disgraceful display of unlawful conduct and abuse of judicial processes. Today, it is clear that nothing stops this—not even the need to safeguard the state’s security.”

“Despite this decision, millions of Israeli citizens stand behind Prime Minister Netanyahu and will continue to support him so he can lead us through these challenging and turbulent times," Levin added.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said ,"The panel of judges is harming Israel's security."