Lapid vows to cancel 7 laws
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has vowed that if and when his party comes to power, it will overturn seven laws passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government, but the controversial Jewish Nation-State law was surprisingly not one of them.
The laws that Yesh Atid would cancel include the Mini-markets Law that blocks businesses from opening on Shabbat, the Recommendations Law that bars police from recommending indictments to the state prosecution, and laws that prevent police from announcing why an investigation was closed, bar candidates from fund-raising for primaries, require local authorities to fund haredi (ultra-Orthodox) schools that do not teach enough English and math, and that prevent the prime minister’s expenses from being taxed.
The final law Yesh Atid would cancel is the so-called Mini-Norwegian Law, which allows ministers and deputy ministers to quit the Knesset and enable the next candidate on their party’s list to enter, but permits the ministers to return to the legislature if they quit the cabinet.
Yesh Atid also released on Monday a list of laws it helped pass when it was part of Netanyahu’s previous government but were repealed by the current one. That list includes former laws that would have drafted yeshiva students, required schools to teach more math and English, limited the government to 18 ministers, and prohibited the appointment of ministers without portfolio.
The party vowed to also reinstitute the Western Wall agreement and a framework easing conversion that Netanyahu canceled, as well as the Tzohar Law, which allowed couples to register for marriage in any local rabbinate.
But Lapid said on Monday that he would amend but not cancel the Nation-State Law. He said he had no problem with clauses that set Israel’s flag and national anthem, but he would add equality for all Israeli citizens to the law, which Netanyahu has refused to do, despite demands from the Druze sector.
Lapid would also amend and not change a law passed about special education and the surrogates law, which enables surrogacy for unmarried women, including lesbians, but not unmarried and gay men.
The first new law Yesh Atid would enact if it formed the next government would limit a prime minister to two terms in office, the party said.
When asked by Army Radio Monday what would happen if Yesh Atid joined a government led by Likud, Lapid said that although he intends to form the next government, these laws could be the party’s demands for hypothetical coalition talks in the future.