The Ministerial Committee for Legislation decided not to back a bill proposed by MK Yaakov Katz ("Ketzaleh"), of the National Union, that would make it mandatory for Knesset Members to follow the platform they were elected upon. The committee's decision means that the bill is not likely to pass when it is voted upon in its preliminary reading Thursday. Bills that do not enjoy the coalition's backing are usually doomed to fail in the Knesset plenum. The bill states that a Knesset member representing a party must be loyal to the principles set down by that party's central organ and that he must not deviate meaningfully from these principles. The Legal Counsel to the Knesset will determine what constitutes such a meaningful deviation. If the legal adviser determines that a Knesset member has indeed deviated from his party's principles, then he will have the same status as a Knesset member who leaves his faction. “Knesset members are elected on the basis of the ideology they adhere to,” Ketzaleh explained. “Faithfulness to the path and to the trust that the public places in its elected officials is a foundation of democracy. The faithfulness of Knesset members to the principles they were elected upon is not only the proper way of behaving in a democracy, but also a foundation stone in every moral and enlightened society. Elected officials and leaders should behave in a way that is unblemished – and doubly so with regard to ideological issues pertaining to the lives of all of us.”
