The chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Hanan Melcer, on Thursday rejected outright the petition against the Likud and Binyamin Netanyahu demanding an injunction forbidding the broadcasts of Likud TV, the Facebook television channel which Netanyahu set up to bypass the media ahead of the elections.
The petitioner, Attorney Shahar Ben Meir, was fined 3,000 shekels.
In his decision, Justice Melcer determined that these broadcasts are different from television broadcasts provided to the public by the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation or from those broadcasts provided by the private licensees operating under the Second Authority Law, and are considered a limited resource, and as such are subject to various restrictions, as far as election propaganda broadcasts are concerned.
Moreover, the ruling noted that on the Internet, every candidate in the elections is entitled to publish without limitation of time and place, provided that the publication does not contradict the law and thus the equality is maintained. Therefore, Melcer determined, there is no place for restricting the freedom of political expression, and the petition was rejected out of hand.