Prime Minister Yair Lapid condemned the coalition's intention to pass a bill allowing Shas chairman Aryeh Deri to serve as a minister despite his conviction for tax offense during the weekly Yesh Atid faction meeting Monday.
"The incoming government is establishing a special committee to pass the 'Deri Law.' This is a completely corrupt law, a completely personal law, which has only one goal: to allow a person convicted of crimes to become a minister. Aryeh Deri is a serial criminal who sat in prison, was released, then returned to his evil ways and was convicted of serious tax offenses. As part of his plea agreement, he resigned from the Knesset and pledged in court that he was retiring from public life to avoid another scandal," Lapid said.
"But now he discovered that in the most extreme government in the history of the country there is no such thing as laws. Bibi is weak, Deri knew that he would submit to him as he submits to everyone. So instead of breaking the law, Aryeh Deri changes the law. That's how he will manage to become a minister. The incoming government announced that it In an expedited procedure, you will pass an amendment to the Basic Law: The Government, which will allow Derai to be the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Health, Deputy Prime Minister, and in two years, the man who was convicted of tax offenses, wants to be the Minister of Finance and responsible for the Tax Authority," he added.
"Due to the intoxication of power and their arrogance, they forgot one thing: in the new coalition there are four people who are not allowed to vote on this law, because they have a conflict of interest. Today we will issue an urgent appeal to the Knesset's legal advisor to prevent the four of them from voting on the law because of an inherent and serious conflict of interest," Lapid said, specifying that he was referring to Deri himself as well as MKs Netanyahu, Bitan and Haim Katz.
MK Katz's office said in response: "Among their multitude of failures, it turns out that fact-checking is not the strength of the Yesh Atid party either. After the attorney's office claimed that 'there was no moral problem or issue of corruption in his actions', the court ruled that there was no moral turpitude in the actions of MK Haim Katz (legislation of a law that is beneficial according to all opinions) therefore he is not barred from serving as a minister."