BICOM

Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein yesterday warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he would not be able to legally defend bills restricting foreign funding of NGOs, as the proposed legislation was ‘unconstitutional’. Weinstein made the remarks in a letter to Netanyahu, obtained by the Israeli media on Tuesday.

The two bills in question, submitted by MKs Ofir Akunis (Likud) and Faina Kirshenbaum (Yisrael Beiteinu), were both approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, but four ministers then appealed this decision to the full cabinet. Soon afterward, Netanyahu decided to freeze the bills.

Weinstein explained his unusual decision in a letter to the PM, “The attorney general’s policy is to refrain as much as possible from declaring laws unconstitutional, out of respect for the legislative work of the cabinet and Knesset, but in light of the blatancy of the case before us, deviating from this policy is justified. What this means is that if these bills become law, I won’t be able to defend them against the petitions that will be submitted to the High Court. That is what I intend to tell the Knesset, and afterward the Supreme Court.”

Weinstein added, that the bill would “damage a number of constitutional rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of association and the right to equality.” Instead of the bills, Weinstein proposed other means of dealing with the problem, such as improving the transparency of donations and making diplomatic efforts to dissuade foreign governments from funding such groups. “Beyond that,” he wrote, “the right way to deal with different opinions is by raising counterarguments in the framework of open discussion in the ‘marketplace of ideas’ that characterises a democratic society.”

Last week, following Netanyahu’s decision to freeze the bills, the drafters of the proposed pieces of legislation in question, MKs Akunis and Kirshenbaum, decided to shelve them and submit a new joint proposal. The new bill would ban foreign governments from donating any money to NGOs that support indicting Israeli soldiers and officials in international courts or encourage soldiers to refuse to serve. Other NGOs could accept donations from foreign governments, but the money would be taxed at a rate of 45 percent, unless either the Israeli government also funds them, or the finance minister and the Knesset Finance Committee exempt them.