AG: Bayit Yehudi coalition deal contradicts legal opinion on Settlement Division
Deputy AG determined gov't should stop directly funding Settlement Division, while deal with Bennett stipulates NIS 50 million addition to division's budget.
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein challenged Bayit Yehudi's coalition agreement on Thursday, determining a clause committing to increase the Settlement Division's budget by NIS 50 million contradicted the Justice Ministry's legal opinion.
Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Galon filed a petition to the Supreme Court against the agreement, claiming two of its clauses dealing with the Settlement Division were not legal.
Deputy Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Dena Zilber wrote in a legal opinion in February that the state must reclaim powers given to the Settlement Division regarding policy setting, including decisions on the distribution of resources to third parties.
Creating priorities on settlement should be done by the government and cannot be done by the division, Zilber said.
"In accordance with this, the state must end the direct budget for the Settlement Division, whether as part of the state budget or in other manners of direct funds transfer," Zilber wrote.
Despite this legal opinion, the Settlement Division's budget will receive a NIS 50 million increase to its 2015-2016 budget.
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Weinstein submitted his preliminary response to the Meretz petition to the Supreme Court on Thursday, noting that while the Supreme Court should interfere with political agreements only on rare, unusual and extreme occasions, the petition in question was one such case.
The attorney general determined that because the coalition deal contradicts the instructions in Zilber's legal opinion, "the agreements in it cannot be implemented."
The Justice Ministry stressed that the attorney general's instructions reflect the current legal situation and that the government and its authorities are required to adhere to these instructions.
Zilber informed Government Secretary Avihai Mandelblit on Wednesday that clause 67.1 of the coalition agreement between ruling party Likud and Bayit Yehudi, which concerns the Settlement Division, contradicted her legal opinion and can therefore not be implemented in its current form.
But while clause 67.1 was found to contradict legal opinion, clause 67.2, which deals with the formation of a committee to examine the Settlement Division's operational model and its working relations with the government, "is not only not in contradiction with the legal opinion, it is necessary under the circumstances, as the political echelon is required to decide on a variety of questions regarding the government's policy on settlement."
