The Supreme Court convened in a nine-justice panel ruled against a petition seeking to overrule the outgoing Knesset’s decision to increase the minimum threshold for a party entering Knesset from 2 to 4 seats. The panel was headed by court President Justice Asher Grunis.
Yehuda Gutman and Eliyahu David Meshlumi filed the petition to restores the old 2% minimum threshold by eliminating the current 3.25% threshold, with the latter translating to four seats and the former to two seats. The petitioners told the court this new regulation is a blow to the Arab parties.
This was the last decision by Grunis as president for on Thursday, 24 Teves, Vice President Justice Miriam Naor will be appointed to the post.
In the last elections for the 19th Knesset, there were 3,793,221 valid votes which means the 2% minimum threshold translated to 75,864 votes. Based on the number of valid votes in the last election, the new 3.25% minimum translates to 123,279 votes for a party to enter the 20th Knesset.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
A “Basic law” in Israel is a constitutional statute passed byh a super majority and can not be overruled by the Supreme Court. The threshold is “constitutional” not “statutory”. It would be like asking the US Supreme Court to ban the electoral college or reapportion the Senate or reinstitute slavery.
By American standards it is “too easy” to amend the Israeli constitution (though it is similar to Britain, where under the doctine of parliamentary supremacy any statute can prevail, though that has changed slightly but not necessarily with the UK joining the EU).