The Supreme Court is expected to rule in a legal dispute that has developed between Attorney General Aharon Barak and the two Independent Liberal Party ministers, Moshe Kol and Gideon Hausner, who resigned from the Cabinet Monday, several hours before Premier Yitzhak Rabin submitted his own resignation to President Ephraim Katzir.
Rabin’s resignation converted his government into a caretaker regime, effective immediately, pending general elections. According to Israeli law, no minister is permitted to quit a caretaker government. Kol, who was Minister of Tourism and Hausner, a Minister-Without-Portfolio, resigned from the regular Cabinet and claim, therefore, that their resignations are valid. Barak, citing a provision of the law which states that a minister’s resignation becomes effective only 48 hours after it is offered, insists that Kol and Hausner are now members of the caretaker government and must remain with it.
Hausner, who as Attorney General in the early 1960s prosecuted Adolf Eichmann, stood by his interpretation of the law yesterday but conceded that he might be mistaken. He said he would abide by the decision of the Supreme Court.
The ILP, with four Knesset seats, has long been a coalition partner with the Labor Alignment. But serious differences developed between the two factions in recent months. The ILP has demanded a reorganization of government ministries, compulsory arbitration in labor disputes and a national health insurance plan that would not make membership in the Histadrut sick fund, Hupat Holim, mandatory. Some of these measures are vigorously opposed within the Labor Alignment, especially by Mapam.
The ILP decided in principle last month to leave the Rabin coalition if it did not receive satisfactory replies. The Alignment promised to answer the ILP by mid-January and the ILP agreed to wait. But the government crisis precipitated by Rabin’s ouster of the National Religious Party from his Cabinet Monday, forced the ILP’s hand. It demanded immediate-replies from the Alignment in order to avoid being trapped in a caretaker regime. Rabin was not prepared to accede to their demand and when he announced late Monday that he would resign, Hausner and Kol submitted their own resignations on the spot.
Meanwhile, Yosef Almogi, world Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives chairman, was mentioned today as a possible candidate to head the Labor Party election campaign.
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