The High Court (Bagatz) dismissed a petition by the Democrats party seeking to disqualify Otzma Yehudit, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and MK Tally Gotliv from running in the upcoming elections. The petition came after the Central Elections Committee, which oversees candidate eligibility, rejected a similar request the party had filed there.
Justice Ofer Grosskopf ruled that the Democrats do not meet the conditions set out in the Elections Law for filing an appeal. Under the law, only one-third of the members of the Central Elections Committee may request the disqualification of a candidate, and only those who meet that threshold may then appeal the committee's rejection of their request to the High Court.
Because the Democrats party does not meet that requirement, the court found it has no standing to use the statutory appeal route to seek the disqualification of Otzma Yehudit, Ben-Gvir and Gotliv.
The Democrats argued that despite the statutory limitation, Bagatz should hear the petition and disqualify the party and candidates under its residual authority, which allows the court to grant any remedy it deems appropriate. Justice Grosskopf rejected that argument as well.
In his decision, the justice repeated the reasoning set out last week when Bagatz dismissed a similar petition filed by the Zulat advocacy group.
"There can be no dispute that an ordinary legislative arrangement cannot limit the authority of the High Court, which is anchored in Basic Law: The Judiciary," Grosskopf wrote.
At the same time, he clarified that the existence of the statutory framework places a significant burden on petitioners who seek to bypass the route the law has set out for disqualifying candidates.
"The legislative arrangement imposes on those who file a petition like the one before us an additional burden to convince the court that there is justification for hearing their claims, despite their bypassing of the main route of appeal established in the Elections Law," the decision stated.
