The meetings of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee in the Knesset regarding the reform of the legal system, draw a lot of criticism regarding the conduct of the chairman of the committee, MK Simcha Rotman in everything related to the granting of the right of expression.
MK Rotman, for his part, rejected the criticism. Who is right? Two senior researchers conducted an innovative study using artificial intelligence that examined the rate of participation in the committee. According to the findings: the chairman of the committee speaks between 25%-45% of the time, also, equality was recorded Between the speech rate of the jurists who support the reform and those who oppose it.
Researchers Dr. Ronit Levin Shenor, senior lecturer in law and expert in empirical research and political conflicts, and Dr. Renana Kidar, senior lecturer in law and digital humanities, expert in computational textual analysis of law, activated the algorithm that researched the 7 committee meetings between the dates 11.1-23.11 which constitute 17 hours.
The Constitution Committee discusses the legal reform, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
In the debates that took place on January 22-23, which were boycotted by MKs from the opposition, Chairman Rothman spoke about 40% of the time, while in the rest of the debates he spoke about 30% of the time.
When he was replaced by another chairman, the situation changed: in three meetings, Rothman was replaced by MK Moshe Saada, who spoke about 17% of the time on average, and once by MK Yitzhak Pindros, who spoke only 5% of the time. The researchers point out that "the chairman of the committee takes over on the right to speak".
They also comment that due to the fact that the bill being discussed in the committee is Chairman Rotman himself, "it could have been expected that by virtue of his central role in setting the agenda and drafting the proposals, and also considering the fact that the discussions in the committee were not preceded by formal and informal formation and preparation procedures, the chairman was withdraws from a high degree of control over the debates and turns the stage to hearing diverse and even professional voices, as he stated he would do at the beginning of the debates."
When examining each meeting separately, it appears that the members of the Knesset from the opposition each receive little speaking time, in the meeting held on January 16, the members of the opposition each spoke 1.6% of the time - "an extremely negligible rate" according to the researchers.
MK Rotman - Soon a Turkish sultan?
MK @rothmar, humorously: "I heard that the plan is to make me a Turkish sultan"
MK @MosheTurpaz: "You are not a Turkish sultan, but you certainly run a Turkish bazaar" @zionutdatit @YeshAtidParty pic.twitter.com/8LLal28u1h
— Knesset Channel (@KnessetT) February 5, 2023
When examining the total number of discussions, it appears that the members of the opposition speak 26% of the time of the committee, while the members of the coalition speak 32%, most of the time Chairman Rothman himself. The researchers note that the figure "reflects the political story: the coalition speaks with one voice - literally - the voice of Rothman, On the other hand, the opposition is divided between many speakers, none of whom gets to present an orderly position in front of the committee and certainly as a group their voice is not cohesive."
As far as voicing the expert jurists' position is concerned, according to the data, Rothman maintains a balance.
In all the discussions, he allowed the jurists opposed to the reform to speak 18% of the time, while the supporting experts 8%.
This does not include the public servants who received 5% of the total speaking time, and in fact they also oppose the reform.
The researchers point out that "on average per speaker per meeting, supporting experts and opposing experts received a similar rate of about 5%, ignoring the exceptional case of Prof. Yitzhak Zamir" - an expert opposed to the reform who spoke 29% of the meeting in which he participated.
The researchers nevertheless note that "the experts who are not clear supporters of the reform, do get an opportunity to be heard, but in a very partial and negligible way compared to the part of the chairman".
On behalf of the Chairman of the Constitution Committee, MK Simcha Rothman, it was stated: "This is a biased examination that took 7 days of discussions that were selected in a trend-setting manner, some of which were devoted to opening speeches or the presentation of the bill. The chairman of the committee MK Rothman speaks in three hats: also as a draft proposer The bill, both as the chairman of the committee leading the debate, and in some cases, such as when he presented all the amendments to the Basic Law of the Knesset that were enacted with immediate effect, as an expert who did an independent review.
"Meanwhile, on the days of the routine debates, significantly more time is given to the speakers who oppose the reform. It also appears from the graph that as the debates continue, the numbers summarizing MK Rothman's speaking time keep going down.
As mentioned, the biased study also does not distinguish between administrative speaking time (calls for order and persistent attempts to silence the Knesset members who erupt according to the experts invited to the committee, who, as mentioned, are mostly from the side opposing the reform) and substantive speaking time: for example, Knesset member Moshe Saada who chaired the committee but did not Functioned as the proposer of the law or as an expert who conducted independent tests of the information presented, spoke for a significant amount of time, which was mainly dedicated to the management of the committee and the distribution of speaking time.
In addition, the study did not examine whether the scope of the chairman of the committee's speech in the debates is unusual compared to previous chairmen of the Constitution Committee.
"And still, despite all these biases of the study, the clear truth cannot be obscured: in the constitutional committee chaired by MK Simcha Rothman, more discussion time was given to the opponents of the reform than to its supporters."
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