The High Court of Justice strongly recommended on Thursday that the Knesset redo its vote of Michael Rabello for the position of state comptroller, due to concerns that the required secret ballot was violated in the original, highly controversial election earlier this month.

“We are suggesting a procedural step that does not interfere with the discretion of the Knesset. In simple Hebrew: do it again,” court Deputy President Noam Sohlberg said at the end of a lengthy hearing on the issue.

“Whatever you decide is fine, but just do it in a clean and proper manner,” he added.

Sohlberg issued the court’s recommendation after some six hours of oral arguments over petitions demanding the election be annulled.

Sohlberg gave the respondents, which includes the Knesset itself, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Rabello, who is Netanyahu’s longtime lawyer, until Monday to respond, saying that otherwise the court will issue a conditional order against them.

The petitions noted that at least seven coalition MKs had recorded themselves voting for coalition candidate Rabello, allegedly on the instructions of senior Likud officials who mistrusted their vote. The petitioners argued that the requirement of Basic Law: State Comptroller that the election be held by secret ballot was therefore violated.

Rabello lost the first round of voting to retired Supreme Court justice Yosef Elron 60-57. A second round of voting had then begun, since a candidate needs 61 votes to be elected, but was aborted after opposition MKs alleged that coalition MKs had been ordered to record their vote.
But during the second vote, at least seven coalition MKs recorded themselves voting for Rabello, who won the election 61-57, with some coalition MKs having apparently switched their votes from the first round.

Last week, coalition MK Sharren Haskel of the New Hope party said that coalition MKs “had been required to enter and record behind the voting booth in order to prove how........

© The Times of Israel