Former Israel Bar Association head Efi Nave will continue to run in the lawyers’ group’s election after a decision by the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday overturned the disqualification of digital signatures of support.
“I welcome the court’s decision to approve the signatures that we collected and reject outright the ridiculous and anti-democratic attempt of opponents to disqualify my candidacy,” Nave said in a statement. “It was expected that those who claim to fight for democracy would act in a slightly more democratic manner.”
Nave’s election team said that they had petitioned the court following an election committee decision last Wednesday that retroactively disqualified Nave.
Signatures of support presented for candidacy
Five hundred and fifty signatures of support are needed to run for Bar leadership, and evidence was presented by attorney Doron Barzalay that Nave and other candidates had collected digital signatures rather than hand-written signatures.
An election committee tie on the issue was broken by the panel’s chairman, against the use of digital signatures. The move threatened to cut short Nave’s run.
“The attempt was to change the rules of the game after the game did not work for you,” said Nave.
Nave said that the move against him was made as he was mourning the passing of his mother, who was laid to rest in Ashkelon on Friday. Nave claimed that she had wanted to come to his campaign event the following week.
Other attempts have been made to disqualify Nave from seeking reelection. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel (MQG) sent a letter to the State Attorney’s Office on May 4 asking that they intervene.
MQG claimed that a Nave-led Bar was ethically unacceptable, but the group’s ethics committee was unable to discuss the issue due to some of the panel’s members having been appointed by Nave himself.
When it appeared that Nave was disqualified on Wednesday, MQG said that “Efi Nave should be disqualified mainly for being a criminal and not for procedural matters.”
Nave’s career is marked with scandal. In 2022 he was convicted of sneaking his partner past customs border security at Ben-Gurion Airport in 2018. He had done so to avoid complications with divorce proceedings.
The former Bar president resigned in 2019 when he was accused of promoting judicial candidates in exchange for sexual favors, but in 2021 the case was dropped. The deputy state attorney said that the case wouldn’t stand in court due to mixed motivations of Nave and his sexual partners.
Avi Himi, Nave’s successor, resigned in January the day following the revelation of his own sex-for-judgeship scandal. A female attorney accused Himi of masturbating during a video call with her when she sought his recommendation for a judgeship.
The Bar elections are set to be held on June 6.
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