Levin Urges Knesset to Ignore High Court on State Comptroller Rerun

Justice Minister Yariv Levin said Wednesday morning that the Knesset should defy the High Court's unanimous ruling voiding Michael Rabello's election as state comptroller and ordering a rerun vote, calling on the coalition to hold no repeat election and to swear Rabello in. There cannot be any doubt, Levin told Kol Berama radio. A repeat election for State Comptroller cannot be held. Attorney Rabello should assume the position. Levin said he believed the entire coalition shared the position and framed the court's intervention as especially grave because the comptroller would oversee the judiciary itself. Yashar chair Gadi Eisenkot called Levin the enemy of Israeli democracy and Democrats leader Yair Golan warned that ministers who order legislators to ignore binding court rulings are dismantling the rule of law. The comments deepen the July 5 confrontation in which the cabinet declared it would not comply with a High Court ruling on the Second Authority media regulator, and follow Levin's July 7 remarks likening the justices to dictators.