The Knesset approved on Thursday night the first reading of the Ministerial Qualifications Law, known as the "Deri-Smotrich Law", which allows Shas chairman Aryeh Deri to be appointed a minister despite his recent conviction on tax offenses, and gives Religious Zionist Party chairman Bezalel Smotrich powers over the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria.
The bill was approved by a majority of 63 MKs who voted in favor. 52 MKs voted against it. It will now be returned for further consideration by the special committee established to discuss it.
Before the vote, Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar spoke for almost four hours as part of a filibuster in an attempt to delay the vote.
The bill is a merger between two private bills - one by Knesset member Moshe Arbel (Shas) dealing with the qualifications of ministers, and the other by Knesset members Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party) and Nissim Vaturi (Likud), which concerns the appointment of an additional minister in a government ministry.
The bill proposes amending one of the eligibility conditions for appointing ministers to the government, as stipulated in Section 6 of the Basic Law, and to state that the limitation of eligibility to appoint a person as a minister due to his conviction for a crime will only exist if that person has been sentenced to actual imprisonment.
It also proposes to establish, as a permanent provision, that in addition to the minister in charge of a government ministry, it will be possible to appoint another minister in the same ministry, so that two ministers will serve in the same ministry at the same time. The additional minister will be the minister in charge of certain areas within that ministry’s areas of activity.