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The petitioners, Mr. David Even-Tzir, the candidate who was elected for the Haifa region, and Mr. Ophir Akunis, the candidate who was elected for the Tel-Aviv region in the Likud primary elections for the 18th Knesset petitioned the Central Elections Committee to change the order of candidates on the Likud list for the Knesset.

 The petitioners' request is based on the charter of the Likud primary elections for the 18th Knesset (hereinafter: "the charter"). According to their claims, the charter provides that assigning slots on the list to candidates will be done subject to guaranteeing representation for certain sectors, among them women, which was designed to ensure their being represented even if no women are elected in the usual way to higher spots on the list, as stipulated in articles 16-18 of the charter. In the primaries that were held, a large number of women were elected, with the result being that the need to use any legal device stipulated in article 16 of the charter to guarantee slots for women on the list became superfluous regarding some of those slots. After receiving the results, a preliminary list of candidates was published, according to which certain candidates on the national list were moved up to higher positions on the list, while the candidate who were elected on a regional basis remained in their original slots, unchanged. The petitioners claim that as a result, a mistake was made in assigning slots since article 27 of the charter, whose stipulations appear below, was not implemented.

 In response to the petitioners' claims, candidates Moshe Feiglin, Michael Ratzon, and Ehud Yatom, as parties who stood to suffer damage if the petition were accepted, offered their counterclaims, Their contention is that the assigning of slots on the list was done properly according to the charter, that there was no need to move up the regional candidates and offer them any additional safeguard, and that moving up candidates higher on the list according to article 27 of the charter applies only to candidates on the national list. This, based on articles 12 and 13 of the charter.

 The respondents contended that no petitions may be filed on the election results at this stage after the results have been published, and that they should have been filed earlier.Furthermore, since a woman was elected, namely Ms. Katy Katrine Sheetrit in the Jerusalem region, the need to guarantee such representation in the 29th slot no longer exists.

 First and foremost, it must be emphasized that the list of results as read out on the night of Wednesday, immediately after the conclusion of the election process, cannot be considered an official announcement of results or a final list, and reading these out did not constitute a final announcement made by the Central Elections Committee. The committee was authorized to hear appeals on the results as stated in article 74 of the constitution and to instruct a change in results after it allowed anyone who was liable to be affected adversely by its decision to bring its case before it, as was indeed done in this instance.

 After considering the arguments of the parties and their representatives, the committee unanimously reached its conclusion that the appeal be accepted. It must be emphasized at the outset that the decision is not based on specific people and is not directed personally at these or other people but solely and exclusively is concerned with implementing the principles of the charter regarding the election results.

 Articles 12 and 13 of the charter deal with the placement of candidates on the Likud list for the Knesset. Article 12 states that the elected candidates of the national list are to be placed beginning with the second place on the list through the 21st, inclusive, while slots 22 to 37 inclusive will be assigned to the regional candidates according to the order that they appear on the list. In both articles it was emphasized that these placements are "subject to the assurance of representation for women, which was set down in article 16 of the charter and subject to the same regarding new immigrants, as set down in article 23 of the charter". Since according to the election results it became clear that there was no need to guarantee a slot for women, the stipulations of article 27 that deal with these circumstances must be applied to the results

 Article 27 of the charter states as follows:"Implementation of the guaranteed representation pushes candidates out of their places, correspondingly. If the need to guarantee representation to any sector ceases to exist, under this charter, the entire list will be moved forward correspondingly, without any other internal changes due to the cancellation of guaranteed slots."

 Exercising the stipulation of article 27 under these circumstances where the need to guarantee representation to women does not exist leads to the conclusion that the petition should be accepted. Representation of women was promised in slot 20 of the list under article 16 of the charter. Since the results show that women were elected on their own account without requiring any guaranteed representation, the "entire list should be moved forward, correspondingly without any other internal changes due to the cancellation of guaranteed slots". Moving a candidate from the national list forward to this slot must be considered as ignoring the stipulations of article 27. According to these directives, the candidate who was elected to the 21st place on the list, which was promised to the new immigrant sector, should be assigned this place. After that, the places assigned to regional candidates should be moved forward. As to the claims of the petitioners regarding the fact that an additional woman, Katy Katrine Sheetrit, was elected which cancels out the need to guarantee representation, it should be emphasized that for the reason cited previously, this claim is dismissed in essence, because accepting it would make article 27 of the charter unnecessary.

 Likewise it must be emphasized that Ms. Katu Sheetrit was elected on the regional list, and as such, she is not considered a candidate occupying the slot guaranteed for women. In this matter, there is also a ruling by the Likud court that states that a candidate who belongs to a certain sector or region cannot belong to two slots or two sectors. In other words, since Ms. Sheetrit was elected on the regional list, she is not considered a candidate as far as the slot reserved for women. It should be noted, incidentally, that the candidate who was elected to the 21st place, Mr. Ze'ev Elkin, received 7,000 more votes than the candidate assigned the 20th place on the national list, Mr. Feiglin. Continuing to apply the principle of moving forward candidates under article 27 leads to the moving forward of the regional candidates on the list and only afterwards can the next candidate on the national list be assigned a slot.

 Therefore the petition is herby accepted and the assignment of candidates to their place on the list will be corrected accordingly.

 Given this 14th of December, 2008.

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 Yehoshua Gross, Justice (retired)Chairman, Central Elections Committee