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A reform to weaken the Supreme Court fractures Israel and provokes massive protests against Netanyahu

2023-02-19T10:37:29.321Z


The president sees the country "on the verge of constitutional and social collapse" as a result of the proposal, which is voted on Monday


Israel's president may abandon his formal role to arbitrate political crises, but it is rare for him to address the nation in prime time to call for consensus with a grim tone and straight face.

If Isaac Herzog did so last Monday, it was because of the dimensions of the social rift that has opened up the controversial judicial reform promoted by the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We have not been in a political fight for a long time.

We are on the verge of constitutional and social collapse, ”he warned.

The objective of the reform is to weaken the power of the Supreme Court and modify its election system.

Its promoters, headed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, defend the need to rebalance the three powers, considering that the Supreme Court operates in an ideological and excessive manner to the detriment of democratically elected institutions.

His detractors see, instead, a lethal blow to the division of powers and to democracy itself by the most right-wing government in the seven decades of the country's history.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis – out of a total of 9.7 million – have been demonstrating against the proposal for seven Saturdays, mainly in Tel Aviv.

And a partial strike and a demonstration before the Knesset (the national Parliament) is called for this Monday, which is expected to be massive,

on the occasion of the vote on the text at first reading.

All this without the Executive taking even two months in power.

The most controversial element of the reform is a clause that would allow Parliament to annul a decision of the Supreme Court by simple majority.

The Government also wants to modify the appointment system of chamber judges.

They are elected by a committee made up of three Supreme Court judges, two ministers, two deputies and two members of the bar association.

The latter would be replaced by two public representatives chosen by the Minister of Justice, which in practice would give the Executive a majority on the committee.

Another leg of the reform consists of the fact that the legal advisers of the Government go from professional positions to politicians.

They would be elected by each minister, and their conclusions regarding the legality of the proposals would cease to be binding to become "advice".

The Supreme Court controls the work of the Prime Minister and the deputies, studies appeals against lower-ranking court sentences and hears petitions against the Government and official bodies.

For this reason, the more liberal Israel sees it as an important counterweight.

Levin considers, instead, that he assumes a power that does not belong to him by knocking down those rules that he considers contrary to the Basic Laws, by which Israel is guided by lacking a Constitution.

Aerial view of the demonstration against judicial reform, on Saturday, February 4, in Tel Aviv. OREN ALON (REUTERS)

“In Israel, political power is very centralized and its limitation only falls on the Supreme Court and the legal advisor.

This is exceptional among democracies.

Western democracies can have up to seven counterweights”, such as a president with executive power, a bicameral Parliament or the courts of justice of the EU, explains Amijai Cohen, PhD in Law from Yale University (USA) and researcher at the analysis center Israel Institute for Democracy, to illustrate the importance of a "strong" Supreme Court in the country.

“The reform would significantly weaken the limits on power and leave a system with little

balance of powers ,

he adds.

The Arie Dery case exemplifies what the Executive considers an excess of justice "that ignores the popular will", as Netanyahu defined it.

Leader of the ultra-orthodox Sephardic Shas party, Dery is convicted of a tax offense.

An out-of-court agreement saved him from prison last year, but prevented him from practicing as a minister.

Since Netanyahu needed his votes to govern, he sewed a tailored legislative suit for him so he could name him Minister of the Interior and Health.

As soon as the Likud-ultra-right-ultra-Orthodox coalition sat in a majority in Parliament, he rushed through an amendment limiting the ban on holding a portfolio to only those who had entered prison.

A month ago, the Supreme Court considered the appointment "extremely unreasonable" and decreed its annulment.

"Sorry",

Netanyahu had to stop him.

“I intend to find any possible legal means that will allow you to contribute to the country,” he told her as he did so.

The reform that the Knesset is now studying aims to put an end to this legal tool of “irrationality”.

Personal interest

The debate is also marked by suspicions that Netanyahu seeks to pass the law out of personal interest.

The prime minister denies that the reform affects the three corruption cases for which he is charged in the Jerusalem District Court.

But, if he were convicted in any, he could appeal to the Supreme Court.

Levin admitted in the plenary session of the Knesset that Netanyahu's accusations "convinced" him of the need to "correct" the system.

The government's legal adviser, Gali Baharav-Miara, has asked the prime minister by letter to stay out of the process due to the potential conflict of interest.

Citizen protests are the spearhead of the mobilization.

But opposition politicians, such as the former prime minister, Yair Lapid, have joined in and have spoken at the demonstrations.

Numerous personalities from different fields have also shown their rejection.

The president of the Supreme Court, Esther Hayut, has denounced an "unbridled attack" against justice and has warned that removing the balance between the three powers would make Israel "a democracy in name only."

Seven Nobel laureates have shown their "deep concern" about the initiative and stressed that "scientific-technological research and advanced higher education thrive in democratic countries where there is a clear separation of powers."

And Commanders for Israel Security, a collective that represents more than 440 senior security officials in the country, including several heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet - the secret services abroad and inside,

respectively—has asked the president this Thursday to act as "the responsible adult" and refuse to sign the law, if it is approved.

"This proposed change is a revolutionary transformation of the character of the state [...] We see it as an imminent danger to Israel's national resilience," they say in an open letter.

The first vote, last Monday, in the Constitution, Law and Justice Commission, was particularly angry, with the expulsion of opposition deputies while shouting "

Bushá

!"

(Shame).

The pulse now revolves around the withdrawal of the proposal to make way for dialogue.

Protesters and the opposition demand it to sit at the table and Herzog asked the Government in his speech as a gesture of conciliation.

But the promoter of the reform refuses: he considers that there is enough time to negotiate before it reaches the third reading and that a dialogue with the paralyzed process could serve the opposition to "drag their feet in order to delay and prevent a reform substantive and significant part of the justice system”.

Session in the parliamentary committee that began the processing of the judicial reform, last Monday in Jerusalem.

Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Underlying the controversy are broader political and social cracks.

The Israeli right has long had the Supreme Court in its sights.

He sees it as a pocket of Ashkenazi (Jews originating from central and eastern Europe and generally disparagingly associated with the elite and the left) who use their position to subvert the outcome of the polls.

The right has been in power for a good part of the last five decades.

The most numerous demonstrations have also been in Tel Aviv, the stronghold of the most liberal Israel.

And among the most active participants are start-up

workers

, high-tech companies or law firms who fear that the reform will affect foreign investment and whose salaries many Mizrahis (originating from North Africa and the Middle East) who vote for Likud, Netanyahu's party, would like.

"Here, emotions play a role at least as important as ideology or interests,"

the influential commentator Nahum Barnea wrote last Monday in the newspaper

Yediot Ahanot .


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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-02-19

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