'Veil of ignorance': Israel's A-G attacks Netanyahu's protection law

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara submitted her response to the Supreme Court on Monday regarding the petitions seeking to annul the Incapacitation Law amendment in the Basic Law: The Government. 

This comes after she joined the petition against the law.

Originally, the A-G requested for the first time in history that the Supreme Court invalidate the Basic Law - but the judges rejected her stance. 

However, they did issue conditions regarding the law's enactment. That is, they postponed its entry until the next Knesset.

According to Baharv-Miara's stance, the implementation of the "Incapacitation Law" should be postponed until at least the next Knesset, and in light of such a decision, "an opportunity will be given to formulate a broad systemic view, taking into account future-oriented policing, beyond the 'veil of ignorance.’" 

The amendment as a tool for Netanyahu

Baharav-Miara sees the Basic Law amendment: The Government as “an extreme case of abuse of the constituent authority, where the amendment to the Basic Law of the Government before us was made for a distinct personal purpose, with the aim of influencing a pending legal proceeding regarding the question of the constitutionality of the incumbent prime minister.

"In practice, the authorized authority was invoked bluntly to provide an immediate response to the personal legal matter of the serving Prime Minister and to release him from legal limitations imposed on him, the purpose of which was to prevent interference with the purity of the legal process, its timing, and its very specific context of a pending legal proceeding."

The A-G further added that in her view, "there is room to change the conditional order into an absolute order, so that the implementation of Amendment 12 to the Basic Law will not be immediate, and the arrangement established in the amendment will apply, albeit unfortunately, from the next Knesset."