A bill to regulate and limit the Israel Bar Association was set to pass into law on Wednesday after prolonged debates over the past few months in the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee.
The vote was held after press time.
The bill, which was authored by Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, says the Bar can only use budgets it accrued from membership fees for purposes deemed essential, such as producing the bar examination twice a year and managing the array of internships. It bans the use of these funds for nonessential purposes, which are to be funded by voluntary payments.
The law also includes a provision that requires part of the budget to be divided equally between the Bar’s national council and six regional councils.
No 'political' purposes
Milwidsky and other coalition members said the membership fee, which is mandatory to practice law in Israel, should not go toward political purposes. They cited the Bar’s support and participation in protests against the judicial reforms in 2023.
Israel Bar Association chairman Amit Becher, government and Knesset legal advisers, and opposition MKs said the Bar was an independent organization that had the right to set its own fees without government intervention.
Some of the “nonessential” activities were imperative to maintaining high-quality legal practitioners, they said, adding that the coalition’s real purpose was to punish the Bar with damaging legislation to force its two members on the Judicial Selection Committee to acquiesce to government demands.
Becher said he had been told by associates of Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) that if his representatives on the committee supported Levin, the bill would “go away.”