Court rejects petitions against gas pact with Lebanon

The High Court of Justice has unanimously rejected the petitions concerning the maritime border agreement with Lebanon. Because of the urgency of the matter, the ruling was handed down without detailed grounds for the decision, which will be given in due course.

The hearing took place last Thursday before a senior panel of judges, consisting of the president of the court, Esther Hayut, and justices Uzi Vogelman and Noam Sohlberg. At the opening of the hearing, which was broadcast live after the court accepted a request from “Globes”, Hayut said that it would deal with three questions: firstly, whether a referendum should be held; secondly whether a transition government could sign the agreement; and thirdly, whether the government acted lawfully when it decided not to submit the agreement to a Knesset vote.

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In the petitions filed by the Kohelet Policy Forum and the Lavi organization, it was argued that the Supreme Court had ruled in the past that the Knesset should supervise the government on diplomatic matters during the period of a transition government. It was also argued that the government should not approve an agreement which contained a diminution of territory to which Israeli law and jurisdiction applied. The petitioners claimed that such an agreement required a majority of 80 member of Knesset or approval in a referendum.

The opinion submitted to the court by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara stated that she had recommended that the agreement should be voted on by the Knesset. Nevertheless, she stated that there was no legal bar to sufficing with approval by the government and submitting the agreement to the Knesset for perusal.

“There is no obligation in law to submit an agreement of this kind to a vote in the Knesset,” Baharav-Miara stated. “All the same, in the light of the special nature of the agreement and the proximity to the election, submitting it to the Knesset is preferable and proper, although there is no legal bar to adopting the alternative of laying the agreement before the Knesset for perusal for two weeks.” The attorney general added that the decision on which way to act was one for the government.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on October 23, 2022.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.