Eyal Yinon, the Knesset legal adviser, ruled out the possibility of undoing the dissolution of the 21st Knesset and canceling the September 17th elections, writing Thursday that the decision to dissolve the Knesset is irreversible.
In a written response to a query by Labor MK Stav Shaffir, Yinon wrote Thursday that the law which allows a supermajority in the Knesset to reschedule elections only permits small delays in special cases where elections are, for practical reasons, impossible to hold on the original date.
“The dissolution of the Knesset cannot be reversed, nor the elections set for the 17th of September 2019 cancelled, except by invoking Article 9A of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which permits the Knesset to approve, with a supermajority of 80 Knesset Members, to push off the date of elections for a set period of time due to special circumstances that prevent holding the elections on their [original] date.”
“In the special constitutional situation that has been created,” continued Yinon, pushing off the elections can only be permitted under Article 9A mentioned above, which is not relevant to the situation we currently have.”
Were the Knesset to cancel the September 17th elections, Yinon added, it would create additional unique constitutional problems which would require altering the Basic Law.
Yinon said that in his opinion, making the require alterations to Basic Laws regarding elections during a caretaker government is not possible.
Last month, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) revealed that he had been looking into the possibility of reversing the law dissolving the 21st Knesset and cancelling the September elections.