The High Court of Justice on Wednesday froze the transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels in budgetary allocations made the previous day by the Knesset Finance Committee to ultra-Orthodox schools, the Settlements Ministry and the Religious Services Ministry, due to what it said were “apparent procedural flaws” in the convening of the committee itself.

The temporary court order froze the transfer of all funds allocated in yesterday’s hearing until a further court decision could be made, apart from funds allocated for emergency civilian expenses.

In his decision, Justice Alex Stein said the issue will be brought for a hearing before a panel of three justices “as soon as possible.”

Coalition MKs denounced the court, saying the intervention was unlawful and pointing out that the previous, Bennett-Lapid government had also approved budgetary transfers after elections were called.

The Shas party said the High Court had become “a branch of the opposition” and was “brazenly trampling on the Knesset,” while Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman called the decision “the swan song of judicial pirates.”

Democrats MK Naama Lazimi, one of the petitioners to the court against the convening of the Finance Committee, praised the court’s intervention.

“The coalition is transferring election bribes for military service evasion funds and money for politically connected groups, and then inciting against the court that stops the robbery,” Lazimi wrote on X.

After elections are called, Knesset committees can only convene under strict conditions. The Knesset House Committee approved a decision on July 17 restricting the Knesset Finance Committee to just one hearing after the Knesset’s dissolution on July 18.

That hearing was held on July 29 and lasted the maximum limit of 10 hours, before concluding, having conducted several budget transfers, but with the coalition failing to complete all the budgetary allocations it sought.

Finance........

© The Times of Israel