Since the beginning of the war, due to the challenges posed by the difficult events to the governmental authorities, the government has issued no fewer than 19 emergency regulations and amendments to them.
These decisions mostly violate democratic values and basic rights, such as the rights of suspects and detainees and the use of information from the biometric database. But the measure employed by the government – emergency regulations – is more dangerous than the decisions themselves and the arrangements set out in them.
Emergency regulations ostensibly allow the government to rule without Egypt: replace Knesset legislation in every area – including election procedures and protection of rights, cancel existing laws, and impose taxes without the approval of elected officials and without parliamentary debate or real oversight, for a period of three months. Acting according to emergency regulations, even when there is a choice and the state of emergency does not prevent the Knesset from functioning, constitutes a danger to the very existence of democracy. In the "State of Emergency Regulations," no one is safe, and the threat to the basic rights of every citizen is posed to him by his own government.
Because of these dangers, the Basic Law: The Government establishes strict conditions for the government's enactment of emergency regulations. Among other things, these conditions distinguish the government's authority to enact emergency regulations for the most extreme scenarios of horror, in which the enactment of these regulations is the last resort left to the government to take essential steps for the survival of the state, the democratic police – or, at the very least, to maintain the necessary functioning in times of trouble in order to prevent an immediate disaster. The enactment of emergency regulations is justified only if the state of emergency leads to the fact that in practice the Knesset is unable to legislate.
In the past, even before Basic Law: The Government and the interpretation given to it by the Supreme Court, most governments acted responsibly and used this measure cautiously. To illustrate, between 1948 and 1962, the first years of the state and the most difficult in its history, during a war of existence and stabilization difficulties, when government institutions were under construction and justice in the making, a total of 79 emergency regulations were enacted. Subsequently, excessive use of emergency regulations has been halted, albeit somewhat belatedly, by the Supreme Court and responsible elements in Israeli governments. In the 20 years preceding the COVID-14 crisis, <> emergency regulations were enacted, most of which regulated specific matters in Israel's most sensitive security facilities and apparently did not constitute a significant violation of the rule of law.
Since the outbreak of the Iron Sword War, the government has reverted to emergency regulations. Some of the regulations were even approved by ministers in a telephone referendum, without proper discussion and without transparency. These regulations deviated casually from entrenched tests established in public law
The constitutional limitations and government responsibility were breached during the coronavirus period by a transitional government, which enacted emergency regulations on a scale Israel has never known before: 104 regulations, many of them broad and even offensive (including lockdown and preventing private meetings), in just five months.
Since the outbreak of the Iron Sword War, the government has reverted to emergency regulations. Some of the regulations were even approved by ministers in a telephone referendum, without proper discussion and without transparency. These regulations deviated casually from entrenched tests established in public law. For example, the emergency regulations enacted on 20 October and amended on 10 November entrusted the Minister of Communications and the Minister of Defense with the power to intervene in the media market and news coverage by shutting down foreign media outlets and removing them from multichannel television.
There is no justification for the ongoing enactment of emergency regulations. The state of emergency has not paralyzed the Knesset, and there is no impediment to legislative proceedings. On the contrary, vital legislation is the clear nuclear role of the Knesset, and it is the Knesset's duty to legislate if it believes it is necessary to meet the needs of the hour. In the current situation, there is nothing to prevent such a discussion from taking place more quickly than usual and that appropriate legislation will be accepted as a temporary order for wartime only. If there is indeed a vital and urgent need to establish new legal arrangements, Knesset members will be honored and legislate as soon as possible.
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