The High Court of Justice issued on Sunday evening, requiring the Knesset to explain why Michael Rabello’s appointment as State Comptroller should not be canceled and why new elections for the position should not be held.
It was also decided that an additional hearing on the petition will be held in about a week before an expanded panel of five justices.
Earlier in the afternoon, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana informed the High Court that he would not hold another vote for the position of State Comptroller.
“The Knesset has spoken," Ohana wrote on X. In an official statement on behalf of the Knesset, it was stated: “The Speaker of the Knesset wishes to announce that, for all the reasons detailed in the preliminary response to the petition and during the hearing, he has decided not to hold a repeat vote in the election for State Comptroller."
The announcement came following the dramatic hearing held last Thursday at the High Court on petitions seeking to invalidate Rabello’s election. The justices suggested that the Knesset hold a new election and requested its position by today.
At the center of the petitions are claims that Likud Knesset members documented their votes behind the voting booth curtain, thereby violating the secrecy of the vote. It was also claimed that Rabello has a conflict of interest due to his role as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attorney.
Justice Noam Sohlberg said during the hearing that there is an “undesirable cloud" hanging over the election process and clarified that the panel intended to issue an order to show cause regarding the issue of ballot secrecy.
According to him, some of the documented votes appear “problematic on their face," especially in light of the position of the Knesset’s legal adviser on the matter.
The petitioners argued that documenting the vote turned the process into a kind of “loyalty test" and harmed the purpose of the secret ballot, which is intended to allow Knesset members to vote free of political pressure. The justices, however, questioned whether every violation of secrecy rules necessarily justifies canceling election results.
Representatives of the Knesset and Likud rejected the allegations and argued that no instruction was given to Knesset members to photograph their ballots. According to them, had such an instruction existed, the phenomenon would have been much broader and would not have involved only a small number of Knesset members.
Regarding the conflict-of-interest claims, the panel indicated that at this stage it was not inclined to intervene in Rabello’s appointment. The justices raised the possibility of addressing the issue through a conflict-of-interest arrangement, while Rabello’s representative emphasized that he is a professional attorney and that there are no legal grounds to disqualify his appointment.