The High Court of Justice on Thursday asked the Knesset to consider voting for a third time for attorney Michael Rabello’s appointment to state comptroller after the first two votes were disputed.
“There is apparently an undesirable cloud; some of the votes are problematic on their face. MKs acted contrary to the Knesset legal adviser’s instructions when creating a new rule allowing filming,” said Deputy Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg.
“We are proposing a procedural remedy, that you do it again, only in a clean and proper process. That is our proposal. We will wait until Sunday for your responses on this matter.”
Earlier, the High Court pressed petitioners, the Knesset, and attorneys for the Likud and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over whether the disputed vote that elected attorney Michael Rabello as state comptroller was tainted by a violation of the legally required secret ballot.
The hearing, which was still ongoing Thursday afternoon, was held before Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg and Justices Gila Canfy-Steinitz and Ruth Ronnen, who are hearing seven petitions seeking to cancel Rabello’s election and order a new vote.
Rabello, Netanyahu’s longtime personal attorney, was elected on June 3 after a dramatic two-round Knesset vote. In the first round, retired Supreme Court justice Yosef Elron received 60 votes, and Rabello received 57, leaving both short of the 61 votes required to be elected state comptroller. A second round was then held, during which opposition MKs alleged that coalition lawmakers had been instructed to document their vote behind the curtain, despite the legal requirement that the state comptroller be elected by secret ballot.
After the second round was restarted, Rabello defeated Elron 61-57.
The petitions argue that the vote was not merely politically controversial but legally defective because the documentation of ballots undermined the secrecy intended to allow MKs to vote freely and according to conscience. Some of the petitions also argue that Rabello cannot serve as state comptroller because of his years-long professional ties to Netanyahu, the Likud, the Prime Minister’s Office, and ministers whose conduct the comptroller may be required to audit.
Elron, who lost to Rabello in the second round, filed a short position joining the petitioners’ arguments regarding the alleged illegality of the second vote. He did not ask the court to declare him state comptroller or install him in the role, but joined the requested remedy of canceling the election.
Rabello state comptroller election faces High Court legal challenge
Sohlberg made clear at the start of the hearing that the central issue before the court was the secrecy of the Knesset vote and whether any breach of that secrecy affected the result. He also addressed the unusual fact that Elron, a recently retired Supreme Court justice, is a respondent in the case, saying the justices naturally had friendly relations with him and had worked with him, but that where all the justices could be seen as conflicted, “someone needs to hear” the case.
The justices appeared skeptical at times of the sweeping remedy requested by the petitioners, particularly the argument that any photographing of a ballot should automatically lead to cancellation of the election. Ronnen asked whether such a rule could give people a tool to sabotage elections by filming themselves voting and then demanding the ballot be voided.
At the same time, the bench also pressed the Knesset and the respondents on whether the events in the second round could have chilled MKs who may have wanted to break ranks.
Canfy-Steinitz said that if the Knesset speaker created a “new rule” by saying MKs could document their vote, the court needed to examine whether that may have affected the result, “in the sense that it could chill the position of MKs who maybe wanted to deviate from the line.”
She also said the issue was not only what happened behind the curtain, noting that envelopes used in the vote are meant to be sealed. In a case where MKs showed their vote outside the curtain, she said, “We are effectively dealing here with the removal of the curtain,” calling it “much more basic” than the question of self-documentation.
Attorneys for the petitioners argued that the filming turned the second round into a loyalty test.
Attorney Eliram Bakal, representing Yesh Atid, argued that MKs changed their vote between the first and second rounds and that there was no explanation for the “burst of self-documentation” in the second round if the documentation was truly spontaneous. Ronnen responded that the very existence of a second round assumes that some MKs may change their vote.
Attorney Eliad Shraga, representing the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, argued that “aggressive pressure” led to the loss of support for Elron and that the documentation created an improper “test of loyalty” to the prime minister. He compared MKs agreeing to photograph their vote to MKs agreeing that it is permissible to run a red light.
The Knesset’s legal position, represented in court by attorney Yitzhak Bart, was that the petitions should be dismissed because there was no evidence that MKs had been ordered to document their votes. Bart said a request or instruction from someone able to pressure an MK to document a secret vote would be illegal and invalid, but argued that no such instruction had been proven.
He said the gap between the first and second rounds did not prove that an instruction had been given, and that the Knesset had contacted relevant figures, who denied the allegations. Ronnen pressed him on why seven MKs documented their vote only in the second round, asking whether that could indicate that something had been said to them.
Attorney Ilan Bombach, representing Netanyahu and the Likud, also argued that there was no evidence of an instruction to document the vote or of improper pressure that changed the result. Asked by Sohlberg why four MKs changed their vote in the second round, Bombach said, “These things can happen.”
On the conflict-of-interest arguments, the justices seemed more hesitant to accept the claim that Rabello’s professional ties to Netanyahu require automatic disqualification before a conflict-of-interest arrangement is even finalized.
Attorney Amit Mor, one of the petitioners’ attorneys, argued that Rabello had represented Netanyahu in 55 matters, including both civil proceedings and High Court petitions, and had also represented the Likud, the Prime Minister’s Office, and several ministers. He argued that a conflict-of-interest arrangement would not be sufficient.
Canfy-Steinitz responded that perhaps the court should first wait to see the arrangement, saying the prevailing view is that conflicts of interest can be addressed through such arrangements and that no person has been disqualified from office solely because of a conflict of interest, however broad.
Ronnen similarly asked why Rabello should be disqualified from the entire role if he could be barred from handling specific issues.
Thursday’s hearing also included repeated interruptions by Likud MK Tally Gotliv, who was warned by Sohlberg before being removed from the courtroom after another outburst. Rabello has argued in his preliminary response that there is no legal basis to cancel the election, that his professional background was known to MKs before the vote, and that any conflict of interest can be handled through a standard arrangement once he takes office.
The Knesset, Netanyahu, Likud, and Rabello have all asked the court to reject the petitions.
The case places the court at the center of one of the most sensitive institutional appointments in Israel: the selection of the state comptroller, who is tasked with auditing the government, public bodies, and public administration. The role is especially significant as the next comptroller is expected to handle questions relating to the failures surrounding October 7 and the war, as well as the continuing legal clash over the outgoing comptroller’s attempts to audit those failures.
