A watered-down version of a bill proposal by Likud MK Tally Gotliv to expand immunity of MKs from criminal proceedings would still make criminal investigations against them “difficult, if not impossible,” and thus effectively puts MKs above the law, Knesset Home Committee legal adviser Arbel Esterhan wrote in an opinion ahead of a committee meeting on the proposal, which took place on Tuesday morning.
The law provides two sorts of immunity to MKs for acts committed as part of their jobs. The first, called “procedural immunity,” enables an MK to request and receive from the Knesset plenum a delay in launching criminal proceedings until the end of his or her tenure. The second, called “essential immunity,” enables an MK to argue in court that his or her actions were carried out as part of their parliamentary work.
“Essential immunity” grants the MK a permanent reprieve, while “procedural immunity” is merely a delay. In both cases, the police are not limited in launching an investigation.
Gotliv’s initial version of the bill stipulated that the police could only launch a criminal investigation and a court could only hear a civil suit against an MK, if a minimum of 90 MKs voted that the act in question was not committed as part of his or her job.
Legal advisers, opposition members, and NGOs argued that this would effectively prevent any criminal investigation into MKs, both because necessary evidence usually can only be obtained via an investigation – which according to the proposal can be blocked in advance – and because 90 MKs is an enormous majority that is rarely reached.
They also argued that Gotliv was acting out of personal interest. Gotliv is facing criminal charges for revealing classified information in the Knesset in 2023, that protest leader Prof. Shikma Bressler’s husband was a member of Israel’s security forces. Bressler is also suing Gotliv for libel after Gotliv voiced a conspiracy theory that Bressler’s husband had been involved in enabling the October 7 Hamas massacre.
The new version of the bill
In the watered-down version of the bill presented and debated in the Home Committee on Tuesday, Gotliv lowered the requisite majority to approve an investigation from 90 to 75 MKs. In addition, she posited that approval would not be needed in serious charges that include espionage, prostitution, fraud and breach of trust, bribery, murder, offenses against minors, sexual offenses, theft and armed robbery, extortion, and a number of others.
Furthermore, the 75-MK approval for civil proceedings would only apply regarding accusations of libel, trespassing, and other specific cases.
According to Esterhan, the watered-down version would still de facto prevent criminal investigation in many cases that are clearly not connected to the MK’s job. She gave as an example violations such as drunk driving, money laundering, or belonging to a terror organization, all clearly unaffiliated with the MK’s role but not exempted by the law proposal.
In addition, the bill would still require that 75 MKs issue approval before a court could hear cases such as an MK launching false accusations at a civilian due to a family feud. The accusation would be libel and the case would therefore require Knesset approval, despite it having no connection to the MK’s job, Esterhan argued.
She added that the bill would not only make it hard to indict MKs, but it would also make it hard to indict crimes that other people committed together with MKs. This could lead criminals to “use MKs” in order to whitewash crimes, she wrote.
During the discussion in the Home Committee on Tuesday, Gotliv argued that the bill proposal’s intention was to limit the power of the attorney-general, who Gotliv claimed was intentionally launching sham investigations into coalition MKs. The accusations were echoed in the meeting by Knesset Constitution Committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party).