Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Monday night ruled that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not compelled to resign, despite the indictments against him, because resigning from a transitional government is essentially meaningless.
As to the claim that the indictment against the PM constitutes by itself grounds for the Prime Minister’s taking a forced leave of absence, Mandelblit believes that the issue should be left up to the public and to the political echelon.
Regarding the PM’s obligation to resign from his government ministries in keeping with the law requiring an indicted minister to resign, the AG did not address the issue, seeing as Netanyahu is already in the process of handing over his portfolios.
Mandelblit also avoided ruling on the most crucial question regarding Netanyahu’s political future: will he be allowed, as an MK facing criminal indictments, to form a government. The AG did not say he could, he simply would not rule on a hypothetical question.
But as we reported here earlier this week (Report: Mandelblit Assembles Mostly Leftist Team to Decide Netanyahu’s Eligibility to Run), Mandelblit on Sunday set up a work team to decide this question, and other than AG Mandelblit himself, some members of the committee to decide Netanyahu’s fate include his and the right’s worst enemies.