Video: Security guards at Barkat's hotel beat demonstrators against the legal revolution (Eli Ashkenazi)
Negotiations between the coalition and teams of opposition parties from Yesh Atid and the state camp under the auspices of the president's residence will resume Tuesday morning in Jerusalem, after several days of shuffling and a pause due to Operation Shield and Arrow in Gaza. The talks are taking place amid tensions in the coalition and opposition, including over the continuation of talks, the Judicial Selection Committee and the resumption of legislation by the judicial revolution.
The president's residence issued an unusual statement yesterday calling on both sides to "refrain from expressions that have a political purpose and do not contribute to the ability to reach broad agreements." This followed a public confrontation between the coalition and the opposition over the Judicial Selection Committee, one of the bone of contention in the negotiations over the legal revolution.
Yesterday's confrontation erupted following the coalition's decision to accede to President Herzog's request to elect Knesset representatives on the committee according to the old law and not to postpone its convening so as not to harm the negotiations. The head of the state camp faction, Zeev Elkin, tweeted that this was an achievement of the opposition; Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs responded by threatening that if no agreement is reached, the coalition will appoint two representatives on its behalf to the committee and will not elect an opposition representative according to the existing procedure and practice in the Knesset.
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"Avoid expressions that do not contribute to the ability to reach broad agreements." Herzog (Photo: Government Press Office, Amos Ben Gershom)
The president's residence was called upon to halt the deterioration of the confrontation into a crisis in the talks and issued a statement to calm the situation and not harm the negotiations, and subsequently both Elkin and Fuchs deleted the tweets in question. However, the incident increased the lack of trust in the talks, alongside statements by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and other senior coalition officials about their intention to advance the legal reform even without agreements with the opposition at the upcoming Knesset conference. The state camp demanded last week that the coalition publicly commit to halting the reform before continuing talks on the legal revolution.
The talks held by the president's residence, which began after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a freeze on the revolution at the end of March, have been going on for about seven weeks and have yet to reach any groundbreaking agreement. In the first three weeks, only the technical details and the framework of the negotiations were discussed, and since Passover, the teams have held discussions on all the issues included in President Herzog's outline, which was presented at the end of March: first and foremost the Committee for the Selection of Judges, and then also Basic Law, legislation, the status of Basic Laws, the grounds for reasonableness; appointment of attorneys generals; and anchoring the right to equality and other civil rights.
No breakthrough has yet been reached. Dialogue talks at the President's Residence (Photo: official website, Kobi Gideon/GPO)
During the talks, the coalition and opposition teams presented their positions and even reached some small agreements in principle, but very large gaps remained on the core issues of the Judicial Selection Committee, the disqualification of laws by the court, and the appointment of attorney generals. Since the end of the first round of discussions, representatives of the President's House have held separate talks to discuss further dialogue going forward. The main bone of contention was and remains the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee, where the opposition opposes any proposal that would give the coalition and the political echelon control over the appointment of judges. The opposition is demanding that the issue of the composition of the committee be raised as a first issue as a kind of test of seriousness for the continuation of the dialogue process.
The coalition is represented in the discussions by Ministers Ron Dermer, Yoav Kish, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, jurists Aviad Bakshi and Talia Einhorn, and MKs Kati Shitrit and Hanoch Milwicki. Yesh Atid's team includes MKs Orna Barbivai and Karin Elharrar, former Prime Minister's Office Director General Naama Schultz and Adv. Oded Gazit; and on the staff of the state camp are former Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar, MKs Hili Tropper and Orit Farkas Hacohen and attorney Ronen Aviani. The dialogue at the President's Residence is coordinated by former Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel, accompanied by members of the Tachlit Institute for Israeli Thought.
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