President Aharon Barak once quoted a well-known statement by US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., according to which freedom of speech does not give a person the right to shout in a full and closed courtroom: "Fire!"
and cause panic.
It can be said that in the weekend interviews he was one of those who tried to create a panic when he said about the reform presented by the Minister of Justice, Yarin Levin: "It is similar to a tank revolution."
Barak actually called Mary a civilian.
The majority in Israel who elected the government is required to stand firm in the face of these attacks that call for destabilization.
As the poet said: Do not let your spirit fall.
The father of the nation, the founder of the state, David Ben-Gurion, stands behind the opinion of the majority that supports the reform.
This is actually intended to restore the democratic order.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin.
Barak called the reform "similar to a tank revolution", photo: Oren Ben Hakon
When it comes to matters of law and the constitution, it is customary to wave the mask of the late Menachem Begin while taking his words out of context.
But Ben Gurion also has the right to speak.
The first prime minister opposed laws of overriding importance over other laws and denied the need to enact certain laws with a privileged majority.
"And in particular, it makes no sense to do what they did in America: give the court the authority to invalidate laws if they oppose the constitution," said Ben-Gurion in a speech before the Constitutional Law and Justice Committee on July 13, 1949. "America is a big and rich country, it doesn't care what absurdities there are in it", and cited as an example a law against child slavery that the Supreme Court invalidated because it was against the constitution.
"But in a country like ours, imagine that the people want something, and seven people with the title of judges come - and all respect to the judges - and invalidate a law that the people want! We will have a revolution. I think that giving such authority to the judges is a reactionary thing, the public will not put up with it ".
Ben-Gurion also said at the time: "
It is better for them to make a bad law, than for a minority to take over.
They will answer that they will not tolerate it."
The first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
"Giving such authority to the judges is a reactionary thing", photo: Cohen Fritz, Attorney General
The interesting thing is that in Israel, for all kinds of reasons, they actually tolerated it.
The super law - basic law: human dignity and freedom, as well as basic law: freedom of occupation - were accepted in a much less democratic process than the open and open way of the current reform.
In his book 'Liberalism in Israel' (2019) Prof. Manny Mautner writes that "the three initiators of the two Basic Laws of 1992, Amnon Rubinstein, Dan Meridor and Uriel Lin avoided telling the Knesset explicitly that the two Basic Laws would inevitably lead to a judicial review of the Knesset's legislation."
That is, not only the innocence and ignorance of the members of the Knesset who voted on the basic laws with a meager participation;
But there was also fraud here.
In contrast, for many years, periodicals and the right-wing press mainly warn about the legal tyranny that is taking over, and also openly discuss the need to return Atara to its former glory.
But President Barak and his learned friends did not like to argue with personalities who wrote in HaShiloch and Tekalat before him.
The anti-democratic style, using inflammatory and inflammable rhetoric, that the opponents of the reform demonstrate is part of the elitist tradition of a privileged group that has been brought up to think that it is worth more than the majority of the Israeli public.
The Supreme Court, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Barak believes that he decides everything
Only with the distance of the years can one understand the kind of respectable demagoguery that Aharon Barak specialized in.
In a public debate he conducted at the Hebrew University in 2007 against Prof. Posner from the University of Chicago, he used his favorite metaphors: "You can't say it won't happen here. If it happened in Germany, the country of Beethoven and Goethe, it can happen here too."
That is to say, the Germans are a noble and noble people, let alone the Jews who are inferior to them;
You have to be careful of the Jewish majority.
Then, he concluded: "A democracy needs to know how to fight terrorism with one hand tied."
Perhaps this explains why terrorism survives in our country hand in hand with legalization.
But Barak's strategy, which he implemented in the entire system, is that there is a balance between the killer and the victim, and the person who is authorized to decide how many victims in the soul are worth the elimination of a terrorist or a terrorist leader, is Aharon Barak or a judge in his cell.
In the same debate, Barak spoke about the role of the judge to intervene in orders and battle plans and the route of obstacles such as the fence and much more.
A historic opportunity was created in these elections.
Legal tyranny thrived on the platform of political instability and coalition weakness.
The government should not shy away, but continue on the path of free debate and dialogue but with adherence to the goal.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
