by Ben Niran
In a controversial move seen by democracy watchdog groups as endangering Israel’s separation of powers, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein announced when his opposition to a bill proposed last year by Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party, the Justice Ministry reported in a statement to the press.
Coming on the last, crucial day of the coalition negotiations, Weinstein’s rejection of the bill, which proposed to limit the powers of Israel’s High Court of Justice, was interpreted by The Movement for Governability and Democracy as a blatant interference in the negotiations, and a move that contradicts a directive Weinstein himself issued two years ago, in which he forbade government involvement in coalition affairs.
“The separation between the national public sphere and the [political] party sphere is a basic notion in Israel,” the Movement for Governance and Democracy, a non-profit watchdog group, wrote in an open letter to Weinstein, and demanded an explanation for his statement.
“This separation is necessary in order to prevent a conflict of interests and the politicization of public service,” the organization wrote.