Lieberman unfit to be minister

An investigation against MK Avigdor Lieberman is being pursued by the police, the Tax Authority and the Israel Securities Authority on suspicions of serious charges including bribery, falsifying corporate documents, fraud, breach of trust and money laundering.

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has said the allegations are "significant." The investigation deals with an intricate web of business and financial ties attributed to Lieberman, focusing on suspicions concerning information that first surfaced in 2006. This includes information that was received in the last year when Lieberman was not a member of the government.

The nature of the investigation and the "significance" of the charges disqualify Lieberman from serving as a minister. The Basic Law on the Government denies anyone who has been convicted of a crime marked by moral turpitude, who has been sentenced to prison and who has yet to sit out the requisite seven-year waiting period the right to be a minister. But a High Court ruling states that anyone who is about to be served with a serious indictment should also not be appointed a minister.

The complex ruling also posits that extraordinary circumstances allow for preventing the prime minister from naming a minister, or requiring the premier to dismiss a minister, even in cases where a police investigation is underway and a decision on an indictment has yet to be made. The court also ruled that a minister, or a candidate for a ministerial post, could be disqualified in cases of unethical behavior not within the bounds of a criminal violation.

Ya'akov Ne'eman proved himself a worthy example when he resigned as justice minister at the start of an investigation that resulted in an indictment and eventually acquitted him of all charges in court. The attorney general, whose legal opinion binds the government and its ministers, has yet to issue a directive that permits banning an individual from sitting as a minister due to a police investigation. Instead, he has made do with the assumption that a police investigation is sufficient to disqualify someone from heading the ministry tasked with enforcing the law.

Lieberman is thus disqualified and forbidden from heading the Public Security Ministry, the Justice Ministry and the Finance Ministry in light of the investigations by the police and the Tax Authority, which operate under the Finance Ministry. But his serving in any ministry, due to the depth and scope of the investigation, is highly unreasonable and inappropriate, and it is doubtful whether it will pass legal muster.

In this situation it would behoove the investigators and prosecutors to make every effort to expedite the matter of the Yisrael Beiteinu chairman, removing the cloud over him. It is incumbent upon Mazuz to update the public and the person who forms the next government on the latest developments regarding the "significant" suspicions against Lieberman, without harming the investigation.