An election campaign is “a realm of uncertainty,” wrote three Supreme Court justices on Jan. 2. The judges dismissed a petition by opposition parties that sought to disqualify a Knesset member charged with grievous offenses, i.e., interim Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from forming the country’s next government. The justices agreed with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who already declined to rule on the issue, saying it was theoretical given that elections would only take place on March 2. The justices, too, pointed out that a ruling would be premature given that no one can know who the elected lawmakers will recommend to President Reuven Rivlin as prime minister.

True, there is no certainty that Netanyahu would obtain a Knesset majority ensuring that Rivlin would task him with forming a government. The justices may assume (or hope?) that Netanyahu’s indictment on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust would limit his chances of receiving the presidential mandate to form a government. When Rivlin handed him the mandate after the April 2019 elections and again after the September voting, Netanyahu had not yet been indicted and was awaiting a hearing before the attorney general to lay out his case against indictment.

Nonetheless, while ruling the petition premature, the justices left open the door to revisiting the issue in the future, rejecting claims by Netanyahu and his Likud party that the issue was not under the court’s jurisdiction because in a democracy the “people” decide who rules them, not the court. The judges essentially said that even if the “people” decide to anoint an indicted criminal to rule them, the court is authorized to subvert the will of the people.

The prime minister and his aides probably noticed that in dismissing the petition, the justices nonetheless wrote that the probity of elected officials falls within their purview since it “touches on the core of the fundamental values on which our legal system is based.” There is more than a hint in this remark that the judicial branch also views itself as authorized to overturn a potential future decision by the Knesset to grant Netanyahu’s request for immunity from prosecution on charges of corruption. In other words, even in the “realm of uncertainty," there are limits dictated by morals and values. The ultimate authority to block politicians seeking to breach them (still) rests in the hands of the top court of justice.