Israel’s High Court on Wednesday issued an interim order freezing the appointment of Michael Rabello as state comptroller until a ruling is issued on the left-wing petitions filed against it, which claimed that the vote was tainted since coalition MKs took selfies of themselves casting their votes.

The order was issued just days before the end of State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman’s term.

Last week, the justices issued a conditional order after the Knesset refused their recommendation to hold a new vote. It now appears that in the coming days the Court will issue a ruling requiring the Knesset to hold a new election.

During a second High Court hearing on the petitions held Sunday, the Knesset’s attorney, Yitzchak Bart, argued that because there has never been an explicit prohibition against members of Knesset taking selfies in the voting booth during a secret ballot, the practice cannot be considered a flaw in the election process.

Bart explained that any flaw must be clearly defined in advance, and a vote cannot be invalidated based on a retroactive determination that taking selfies in the voting booth was improper.

“In our view, there was no fundamental flaw in the voting process that undermined the validity of the vote,” he said. He added that even if such a flaw existed, the Court should refrain from overturning the vote because of the need for heightened judicial restraint regarding the Knesset’s internal proceedings and because invalidating a parliamentary vote is an extreme measure.

Bart also stated that there is no concrete evidence that MKs were instructed to photograph themselves while voting. “Given the high evidentiary standard required, there is no evidence that such instructions were given,” he said.

Attorney Ilan Bombach, representing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Likud party, argued that the petitions seek an unprecedented judicial intervention in the Knesset’s internal procedures.

“We are dealing here with an extraordinarily unusual intervention in the Knesset’s internal rules governing a parliamentary vote,” Bombach said. “Retired Justice Elron did not even take the minimal step of filing a petition himself, even though he is the directly affected party. Elron himself has previously ruled that simply naming the affected party as a respondent is insufficient. There is not even the slightest evidentiary basis here.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)