The Knesset approved today (Wednesday) in a preliminary reading the bill to dissolve the Bar Association. According to the proposal, a Bar Council would be established in its place, to which powers currently vested in the Bar Association would be transferred, including its involvement in the process of selecting judges. MK Hanoch Milwicki's proposal was approved by a majority of 50 MKs to 43 opposed.
Yesterday, the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved the bill to abolish the grounds of reasonableness in its original formulation. The proposal is expected to be voted on at its first reading in the plenum.
Amir Ettinger
According to the proposal, a Bar Council will be a public council appointed by the Minister of Justice and will consist of judges, lawyers from the private and public sectors, representatives of the Ministry of Finance and a representative of academic staff at an institution of higher education.
The explanatory notes to the proposal stated: "In the current situation, regulation of the legal profession is entrusted to the professional association of lawyers. The Chamber is responsible for accrediting lawyers and disciplinary matters, while at the same time acting as a professional association charged with promoting the interests of lawyers in the broad professional arena.
Gideon Saar in the Knesset, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"The bill assumes that this situation is undesirable: regulation of the legal profession, like any other profession, must be carried out with the aim of advancing the interests of all citizens, and not the interests of a particular professional community. In the past, the management of regulation by the trade union was a widespread phenomenon, both in other professions in Israel and in the field of law around the world. In other professions, supervision was expropriated from the trade union and transferred to the government, while those trade unions that previously held supervisory powers continued to exist as voluntary representative bodies of the professionals who choose to be members of them."
"The bureau is irrelevant"
Milwicki presented the proposal and said: "I submitted this proposal less than a month after I was elected to the Knesset, there were no candidates for the Knesset at the time. They stopped the proposal when there were talks at the president's house, after the talks broke down they told me not to submit the proposal before the elections to the chamber because it would show that we were interfering in the elections, now they tell me that I am submitting the proposal because of the results. In the end, the Bureau is an irrelevant body, why do we need to maintain a professional organization in 2023 at a hundred million shekels a year?"
Justice Minister Yariv Levin replied on behalf of the government: "Unfortunately, in recent times the Bar Association has become a purely political body, with membership fees being used for political purposes that have nothing to do with the good of all lawyers. The division in the Bar Association has long since become a political division rather than a division based on professional disciplines. This leaves no choice and certainly does not justify and enable the continuation of the existing situation, and the unusual structure that is unparalleled in any other profession."
Minister of Justice Yariv Levin. The Likud is trying to sabotage his status?, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Levin also referred to the Judicial Selection Committee: "When the left side holds the Justice Ministry – as happened with Nissenkorn – 61 judges are appointed within two hours, ignoring our side, which was then in opposition. When there is a change of government, there is no change of government in the committee, and the situation in it remains stable and constant. The current committee is expected to include 6 representatives working as one person, compared to only 3 of the coalition that won a majority in the elections.
"It seems to me that this is an absurd, unacceptable situation that requires correction. Unfortunately, the opposition factions decided to withdraw from the talks, thereby blowing them up. Under these circumstances, an amendment is required regarding the committee, and in the end, I hope, this will also be carried out."
"Changing the rules of the game after the final whistle"
The opposition strongly condemned the approval in a preliminary reading. MK Gideon Sa'ar opposed the proposal: "Now the Chamber has become political? When you were there, of course it should have existed, but when your political interest changed, it had to be eliminated. Does anyone believe that if the results for the Bureau were different, you would come here to dismantle it? You've lost and you'll learn to lose with dignity, you have to get used to it because you're going into a series of losses that will culminate in the next general election. You work like a mafia, everything about you in the end is about power. So far we have seen from you this week how you change the rules of the game during the game, today you change the rules of the game after the final whistle."
The head of the Israeli Bar Association, Amit Bahar, also lashed out: "This is a bullying, anti-democratic and immoral law. They want to dismantle every body that upholds the law and preserves democracy. The government and the Knesset waited to see who would win the elections for the Chamber and then made the decision to disband the Chamber.
Amit Bahar, Photo: Gideon Markowitz
After all, only two weeks ago there were elections for the head of the bureau, in which the lawyers had their say clearly and unequivocally. Yes to the rule of law, yes to democracy, yes to the independence of the judiciary and no to taking over the judicial system. The elections for the Chamber were a kind of referendum, and in this referendum the public said loudly: Don't touch the Chamber. This bill must not pass in the next readings in the Knesset, and if it passes, the Israeli public will not accept it. I remind you that it was this predatory attitude that led to the protest. The Bar Association will fight the decision in every legal way possible until it is overturned."
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