Israeli High Court of Justice will hear arguments on Tuesday about whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can be forced to resign due to his pending corruption trial once he becomes Alternate Prime Minister in November 2021 as part of his rotation deal with Blue and White’s Benny Gantz.

This is just one of the many petitions that have been filed by several parties arguing that the entire alternate prime minister position and the balance of powers established by Likud and Blue and White are unconstitutional, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Already in May, the High Court cleared Netanyahu to form the government and cleared the main principles of the coalition deal as constitutional. However, the High Court put off ruling on Netanyahu’s fate once the rotation changed his role to becoming alternate prime minister.

The petitioners, including the Movement for the Quality of Government in Israel, Meretz, and the Guardians of Israeli Democracy, all say that Netanyahu must resign once he does not have the unique protections of the prime minister’s office.

They have said that creating a sort of immunity for the alternate prime minister, which allows staying in office under indictment until conviction and all appeals are exhausted, is unconstitutional and contradicts 25 years of High Court rulings, according to JPost.

Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, who indicted Netanyahu, recently told the High Court that he views the alternate prime minister role as constitutional.

He said that the Knesset used its sovereign authority to pass Basic Laws to change aspects of the government’s powers, including creating the alternate prime minister position and that the legislature has the authority to create a new position beyond prior High Court precedent that was based on prior laws.

Source: Israeli media