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'Ministry picking local councils undermines democracy' By Yigal Hai MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) submitted a bill last week calling for a two-year limit on local councils' terms due to fears that Israeli democracy is being undermined because the Interior Ministry is appointing such councils. Current legislation gives the Interior Minister the right to appoint local councils in place of councils that have had to be removed. The terms of such councils run to the next local election, and are not less than two years. Advertisement In cases where a council's tenure goes beyond the date set for elections, the council can remain in place for a further five years - which theoretically can produce a situation in which a ministry-appointed council serves a total of seven years. The interior minister is also authorized to limit the tenure of a ministry-appointed council, however in practice there have been councils that have stayed in place for as long as five years. There are currently 25 ministry-appointed councils operating throughout the country. Khenin believes that limiting the councils' tenure will result in less use "of this exceptional tool of governance, which does away with the voters' choice and imposes the rule of central authority over the local government." Explaining the proposed legislation, Khenin refers to data collected by the Knesset Research Division in a report released in February. In the report, the Interior Ministry is slammed for failing to back its frequent appointment of councils with information on their effectiveness in improving council management. Five months ago, Khenin asked the research division for information on the success and failure rate of externally appointed councils whose tenure lasted for a number of years. At this point, Uri Tal, who prepared the report on the ministry-appointed councils, told Khenin he does not have any strong data from the ministry on these bodies' performance. According to the report, Tal asked the Interior Ministry for information on the externally-appointed councils. Tal wanted fairly basic data such as a list of the councils appointed since the state's establishment, the dates of their tenure and the reasons for their appointment. Filling in the missing data He also wanted data on revenues and budget overruns at the local authorities where such councils were appointed, as well as information on these councils' aims and whether they were met. Tal received two lists of external council appointments - one up to 2001 and the second between 2001 and 2006. On the latter list the ministry said it lacked the data requested, and it was "recommended that senior officials in Interior Ministry district offices be contacted so that they can fill in the missing data from memory." The Local Government Directorate at the Interior Ministry provided Tal with an academic study on the number of ministry-appointed councils that took office during the 1970s. However the ministry has not yet carried out an extensive analysis on their effectiveness over the many decades they have been in place. Such research is only now being planned at the Interior Ministry. According to the Knesset report, since the establishment of the state, some 60 ministry-appointed councils took office in around 50 municipal and local authorities; in some cases such appointments were made twice. In recent years there has been a rise in the number of councils and mayors that have been removed from office. In six local councils, the elected mayor is still in office, but he is backed by an externally appointed council. In view of the absence of concrete data, it is not clear how effective these councils have been over the years. However the Knesset report says the ministry-appointed council put in place in Bnei Brak in June 1995 until January 1998 failed to restore long-term financial stability. A short-lived council An external council was appointed in Lod in 2000 for two years, but five years later, in May 2007, the Interior Ministry had to intervene yet again and appoint another council. The report states that "it is possible to conclude that the first external council did not achieve its goals in the long term." But the report also mentions the external council appointed in November 2005 at Yeruham, under Amram Mitzna, as an example of success, reflected in budgetary and management data. Mitzna served for three years, and last week agreed to a request by Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit to extend his tenure. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Falk's folly Israel will refuse entry to the UN's Richard Falk for equating Israel to Nazi Germany. Peace when? After 30 years, the public has adopted Peace Now's views, but peace is still elusive.

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