Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday published the details of his “anti-Netanyahu” law barring anyone under a “serious” criminal indictment from serving as prime minister.

Sa’ar has been slammed for advancing a bill that is clearly aimed at one person – opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. The bill prevents anyone indicted for a crime carrying at least a three-year sentence from forming a government.

Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit reportedly supports the law.

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) stated on Wednesday that she is opposed to Sa’ar’s bill, saying at a conference on Wednesday that “the attorney-general should not be the one to decide who will be prime minister.”

Chairman of the Joint Arab List Ayman Odeh, who said that his party will support the bill, responded to Shaked’s statements by writing on Twitter: “Shaked only has one vote, we have six. Gideon Sa’ar, the law can be passed next week.”

In actuality, Shaked doesn’t even have one vote since she resigned as MK in accordance with the Norwegian Law, which allows ministers to step down so the next candidate on the party’s list can join the Knesset.

However, Shaked’s fellow Yamina party member MK Nir Orbach is also reportedly opposed to the bill. And although Bennett reportedly gave the green light to Sa’ar to publish a draft of the bill, he is on record as being fervently opposed to it. Prior to the last election, he told Makor Rishon: “I unequivocally state that we’ll oppose a law that anyone under indictment won’t be able to serve as prime minister. I’m fundamentally opposed to a situation in which one person can topple a prime minister.”

The chairman of the Religious Zionist party Betzalel Smotich responded to the report by stating: “The memorandum of law entrusts Israeli democracy to the arbitrary decision of an unelected official and grants disproportionate power to the attorney-general over elected representatives, beyond the excessive power he has already assumed. Sa’ar knows this and said it himself a number of times. His hatred of Netanyahu is blinding him.”

The Likud party stated: “Sa’ar, who barely scrapes the electoral threshold in all polls, is proposing an ‘Iranian-style’ anti-democratic law that seeks to disqualify someone who has the support of millions of citizens as their prime ministerial representative…shameful.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)