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supreme court of israel
Tens of Thousands in Israel Rally Against 'Dictator's Bill' as Lawmakers Vote on Judicial Overhaul
If right-wing reforms giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of parliament more power over the judiciary are passed, "the protests will intensify," said organizers.
Feb 20, 2023
Tens of thousands of people opposed to the far-right Israeli government's proposed judicial overhaul once again hit the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Monday, where they implored lawmakers to vote against the measures during the afternoon's first reading.
"On the morning of the vote, small groups of protesters sat down outside the front doors of some coalition lawmakers' homes in a bid to block them from leaving for parliament. They were removed by the police," The New York Timesreported. After blocking highways to Jerusalem, protesters gathered outside parliament, where doctors "set up a mock triage station for 'casualties of the judicial reform.'"
Despite weeks of massive demonstrations, members of the Israeli Knesset are expected to pass the legislation, which is supported by right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close ally, Justice Minister Yariv Levin.
If that happens, the Supreme Court's ability to overrule parliament would be weakened, as a simple 61-vote majority could override the court's decisions; the Supreme Court's ability to review and strike down attempts to change Israel's 13 quasi-constitutional "Basic Laws" would be abolished; and the ruling coalition would gain control of the Judicial Appointments Commission, a panel tasked with picking new judges.
The legislation must be approved three times to become law, with Monday afternoon's vote marking the first step in the process. Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a largely ceremonial figure, and opposition leader Yair Lapid have pleaded for Netanyahu's government to delay the legislation, to no avail.
On the eve of the initial vote, Levin said, "We won't stop the legislation now, but there is more than enough time until the second and third readings to hold an earnest and real dialogue and to reach understandings."
But as the Times noted, "critics have dismissed the government's position as disingenuous, arguing that once the bills have passed a first vote, only cosmetic changes will be possible."
Organizers, for their part, said Monday that "with the passage of the dictator's bill, the protests will intensify," according to i24 News.
\u201cProtesters begin to gather in Tel Aviv, with tens of thousands expected to turn out across the country, as the Israeli Parliament is set to begin the voting process on the hotly debated judicial reform bills\u201d— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS English) 1676876857
\u201cNow in #jerusalem tens of thousands of anti government protesters march around the Israeli parliament\u201d— Oren Ziv (@Oren Ziv) 1676904315
Opponents "say the proposed overhaul would place unchecked power in the hands of the government, remove protections afforded to individuals and minorities, and deepen divisions in an already fractured society," the Times reported. They also worry that "Netanyahu, who is standing trial on corruption charges, could use the changes to extricate himself from his legal troubles."
In addition, Al Jazeera reported, opponents fear that "Netanyahu's nationalist allies want to weaken the Supreme Court to establish more settlements on land the Palestinians seek for a state. But settlements, which are considered illegal under international laws, have continued under successive Israeli governments. Nearly 600,000-750,000 Israelis now live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem."
Last week, Netanyahu's administration granted retroactive "legalization" to nine such settlements, and the prime minister has also intensified deadly raids, killing at least 50 Palestinians in occupied territories so far this year.
A right-wing neutering of the Supreme Court could exacerbate Israel's regime of violent dispossession and ethnic cleansing.
But the weekslong demonstrations against the proposed judicial overhaul "include very few Palestinians," Jewish Currents editorPeter Beinart observed Sunday in a Times op-ed titled "You Can't Save Democracy in a Jewish State."
"In fact, Palestinian politicians have criticized them for having, in the words of former Knesset member Sami Abu Shehadeh, 'nothing to do with the main problem in the region—justice and equality for all the people living here,'" Beinart wrote.
"The reason is that the movement against Mr. Netanyahu is not like the pro-democracy opposition movements in Turkey, India, or Brazil—or the movement against Trumpism in the United States," he added. "It's not a movement for equal rights. It's a movement to preserve the political system that existed before Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition took power, which was not, for Palestinians, a genuine liberal democracy in the first place. It's a movement to save liberal democracy for Jews."
For Palestinians, Israel is not a democracy but rather an apartheid state, an assessment shared by numerous human rights groups around the world. The Israeli government has enacted discriminatory laws against Palestinians and colonized their land for decades, including under Lapid.
According to Beinart: "The principle that Mr. Netanyahu's liberal Zionist critics say he threatens—a Jewish and democratic state—is in reality a contradiction. Democracy means government by the people. Jewish statehood means government by Jews. In a country where Jews comprise only half of the people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the second imperative devours the first."
"Ultimately, a movement premised on ethnocracy cannot successfully defend the rule of law," he added. "Only a movement for equality can."
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Israeli Government Accused of 'Assassinating Democracy' With Proposed Judiciary Overhaul
"It is not necessary to send the Proud Boys to storm the Capitol to attempt a coup," said one former Israeli ambassador. "Abusing a tiny legislative majority to crush the judiciary and the nature of Israel's democracy is also a coup."
Jan 05, 2023
Israeli liberals and critics around the world sounded the alarm Thursday over a plan by Israel's new far-right government to dramatically limit the power of the country's judiciary, in part by allowing a simple parliamentary majority to overturn Supreme Court rulings.
On Wednesday, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin—a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party—released a set of proposals he said were aimed at "strengthening democracy, rehabilitating governance, restoring faith in the judicial system, and rebalancing the three branches of government."
"Judicial review? Gone. Separation of powers? Dead. Checks and balances? Kiss it goodbye."
However, opponents of the plan condemned it as a "political coup" and a "dagger in the rule of law."
"The night of January 4, 2023 will go down in history as the beginning of the regime coup in Israel, on its way to becoming a clone of Hungary/Poland/Russia/Turkey," journalist Yossi Verter wrote for the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
"A democratically elected government is assassinating democracy, for the glory of so-called democracy... on the way to the next step, the annulment of Netanyahu's trial," he added, referring to the prime minister's ongoing corruption case.
U.S.-based Partners for a Progressive Israel tweeted: "Judicial review? Gone. Separation of powers? Dead. Checks and balances? Kiss it goodbye."
\u201cThe Orbanisation of Israeli democracy is underway. https://t.co/atjbYPwzhN\u201d— Liam Hoare (@Liam Hoare) 1672911696
The most contentious part of Levin's plan is an "override clause" that would allow a 50%+1 parliamentary majority to override rulings issued by the Supreme Court, which also sits as the High Court of Justice and has been accused by human rights groups of giving legal cover to war crimes and crimes against humanity including apartheid and the illegal occupation of Palestine.
As Haaretz's Amir Tibon noted: "Israel does not have a constitution, and the separation between the legislative and executive branches is very weak as the government almost always holds a majority in the Knesset [parliament]. This makes the Supreme Court the only institution with the power to limit government actions and legislation passed by a parliamentary majority. Now Levin wants to take that power away."
"For instance," he added, " if the government passed a law that clearly favored ultra-Orthodox citizens and hurt the rights of secular Israelis, and the Supreme Court then struck it down, all it would take to reinstate the discriminatory law is 61 votes in the Knesset."
\u201cIt is not necessary to send the "Proud Boys" to storm the Capitol to attempt a coup. Abusing a tiny legislative majority to crush the judiciary & the nature of Israel's democracy is also a coup. It is time for Israelis to stand up to corrupt extremists to defend our democracy.\u201d— \u05d0\u05e8\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8 \u05dc\u05b6\u05e0\u05e7 \u0622\u0631\u062b\u0631 \u0644\u064a\u0646\u0643 (@\u05d0\u05e8\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8 \u05dc\u05b6\u05e0\u05e7 \u0622\u0631\u062b\u0631 \u0644\u064a\u0646\u0643) 1672915907
Levin's proposal would also change how Israel's judges are selected.
"Today, the Judicial Appointments Committee includes politicians from both the government and the opposition, judges, and representatives of the Israel Bar Association," Tibon explained. "Levin wants to increase the power of the politicians and decrease that of judges and lawyers, effectively giving the government the power to appoint judges and, critically, Supreme Court justices."
The Israel Bar Association opposes Levin's proposal.
\u201cIncredible how just now Israel Bar Association promises to prevent politicisation of their tainted judiciary system when their Supreme Court facilitates the comission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.\u201d— Loureen Sayej (@Loureen Sayej) 1672875718
"Another change he wants to promote is to make it more difficult for the Supreme Court to annul legislation by requiring a larger majority of justices, and not just a regular majority, for any such decision to take effect," Tibon added. When this idea is combined with increasing the government's control over judicial appointments and the override clause, it becomes clear that Levin, in essence, wants the Supreme Court's ability to conduct judicial reviews to become a dead letter."
Furthermore, Levin's proposal would turn legal advisers who serve government ministries from professional appointees accountable to the attorney general into political appointments controlled by Cabinet ministers.
Finally, Levin is seeking to rescind the "reasonableness" standard used by the Supreme Court to overrule egregious government decisions like then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's refusal to fire Cabinet Minister Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, after a 1993 fraud and bribery indictment.
\u201cAt the heart of Israel\u2019s crisis is the fate of an indicted prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the midst of trial, whose hold on power depends on a coalition with party leader Aryeh Deri, who escaped jail through a deal in which he abjured public life. https://t.co/WagguV2bvo\u201d— Noga Tarnopolsky \u05e0\u05d2\u05d4 \u05d8\u05e8\u05e0\u05d5\u05e4\u05d5\u05dc\u05e1\u05e7\u05d9 \u0646\u0648\u063a\u0627 \u062a\u0631\u0646\u0648\u0628\u0648\u0644\u0633\u0643\u064a (@Noga Tarnopolsky \u05e0\u05d2\u05d4 \u05d8\u05e8\u05e0\u05d5\u05e4\u05d5\u05dc\u05e1\u05e7\u05d9 \u0646\u0648\u063a\u0627 \u062a\u0631\u0646\u0648\u0628\u0648\u0644\u0633\u0643\u064a) 1672941450
Levin's proposal came a day before the High Court of Justice heard arguments for and against the so-called Deri Law, legislation recently passed by the Knesset to allow Deri to serve as minister of both health and the interior despite his prior conviction and imprisonment for bribery, tax fraud, and breach of trust.
Levin's predecessor, Gideon Sa'ar, likened the proposed judiciary overhaul to "regime change," while Benny Gantz, leader of the opposition National Unity Party, called the plan "a major danger to the private citizen."
"We don't have a balanced system. We don't have a constitution to protect us. We don't have two houses [of parliament]," Gantz toldHaaretz. "We have a government that with its majority controls the Knesset, and now together they will control the court."
Yair Lapid, who stepped down as Israel's prime minister last week and now leads the opposition, wrote: "Like a gang of criminals, the day before the High Court hearing on the Deri law, the government placed a loaded gun on the table. What Yariv Levin presented today is not legal reform, but rather a threatening letter. They are threatening to destroy the entire constitutional structure of Israel."
"A country that removes basic democratic checks and balances and eviscerates the independence of the judiciary can no longer be referred to seriously as a full democracy."
Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the liberal, U.S.-based New Israel Fund, said in a statement that "a country that removes basic democratic checks and balances and eviscerates the independence of the judiciary can no longer be referred to seriously as a full democracy."
"If Israel's new ruling coalition approves this legislation, it would strip power from the High Court of Justice, one of the few remaining institutions willing to protect human rights, individual freedoms, and democratic values," he continued.
"The international community, including the United States government, should see this move for what it is," Sokatch added, "a lurch towards autocracy, weakening Israel's legal system and democracy, and paving the way towards an attempt to further marginalize the most vulnerable in Israel and under Israel's control, including Palestinians, Arab citizens of Israel, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and migrants."
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