Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana was recorded telling Likud party activists that he takes pride in the parliament's refusal to hold new elections for state comptroller, despite an Israeli Supreme Court ruling ordering it to do so, according to a report Wednesday on Israel's Kan public broadcaster.
In conversations with Likud members ahead of the party's recent primary elections, where Ohana finished in second place, he described the move as setting a red line against the court. "We succeeded in drawing a red line for the High Court," Ohana said in the recording. "There is a High Court ruling: the Knesset will hold new elections for the position of state comptroller. There is a ruling! And what is the response to a ruling given without authority and contrary to law? Enough! We told them: the Knesset has spoken, there will be no more elections. Never before has a Knesset dared, so to speak, to defy the supreme ruler, the Supreme Court. I am happy and proud that this Knesset did so."
