"While our soldiers are fighting side by side on various fronts, and while the entire nation is grieving the loss of many lives, the people of Israel must not be torn apart by divisions. The citizens of Israel expect the Supreme Court not to issue a controversial ruling even among its judges during a war."
Justice Minister Yariv Levin wrote this following the leak of the High Court of Justice ruling on reasonableness, which indicates that the Supreme Court will invalidate the amendment to Basic Law: Judiciary, which prohibits the courts from discussing the question of the reasonableness of a decision by the government or a minister.
Simcha Rothman, Chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, said: "These days, when my friends and I in the Knesset are passing all the laws by agreement and consensus in order to preserve the unity of the people and the fighting forces, issuing a precedent-setting ruling that changes the basic principles of the State of Israel on the basis of a voice is an irresponsible act of national responsibility. I call on the Supreme Court and its justices to come to their senses and connect to the spirit of unity and responsibility that pervades all public spheres, and to refrain from creating unnecessary disagreement among the people. My friends and I will continue to do everything to ensure that the lessons of October 7 are internalized, and that the necessary and necessary changes in the entire government system and in the judicial system in particular will be carried out by the elected representatives of the people, with broad agreements, as befits a democratic state."
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana also did not lag behind the two, stating: "A time of war is certainly not the time to set the first precedent of its kind in the history of the state, like breaking tools."
Addressing Justice Hayut, he wrote: "Madam outgoing Supreme Court President - this is not the way. The citizens of Israel expect all branches of government in Israel to rise to the magnitude of the hour. For the sake of all of us, I urge you and the justices of the Supreme Court to find a way to preserve the unity among the people, which is so necessary at this time."
Switch roles
It is amusing to hear the knights of the nation's rift, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman Simcha Rotman, urging to postpone the hearing of the ruling in order to preserve unity. We all remember Minister Levin's defiant appearance, in which he announced the "legal reform." We all witnessed the forceful manner in which Rothman conducted the committee's deliberations, while keeping the mouths of opponents of the reform shut.
Drunk with victory, Levin rejected the defense minister's plea to soften the wording of the law even slightly, with the prime minister even preventing military commanders from meeting with ministers to warn them of the danger stemming from the law. Suddenly, they discovered the light, and urged the court not to sabotage the unity of the people.
Does unity interest them? No and no. All they ask is to postpone the date of the verdict hearing, so that the authority of President Hayut and Justice Baron to sign the ruling will expire and thus the outcome will be reversed. This fits into the efforts of the government representative in the discussions to push the end to this goal.
Even the call on the court to act "like the Knesset," "with agreements and consensus in order to preserve the unity of the people and the fighting forces," is nothing but a lame joke, as ministers and "close circles" continue their hate campaign against the security forces and their commanders. In addition, contrary to the slander that the prime minister does not deal with the "day after," it turns out that he does not spare a moment from the election campaign, since, in the words of the Knesset speaker, it is a time of war. The honorable gentlemen were apparently on a sleep break when the finance minister, with the support of the prime minister, continues to transfer huge sums of money to their coalition colleagues, because the coalition of 64 needs to be maintained.
Rothman attached another argument that is not dependent on war: it is inappropriate to give "a precedential ruling that changes the basic principles of the State of Israel on the side of a voice."
Two answers to this: First, this is the relative majority in which the "Reasonableness Law" was also passed in the Knesset. Second, this is how the court operates. The petition to cancel the amendment to the Citizenship Law, which prevents the naturalization of Palestinian spouses in Israel, was also rejected by Cole. Interestingly, at the time the legitimacy of the decision was not attacked.
It was not necessary for the court to consider a full panel of the petition, and it has never done so. The law stipulates that the Supreme Court will hear three, but "the President of the Supreme Court may order that the hearing be before an odd number of judges." Presidents of the Supreme Court usually use this power when it comes to a matter of principle, but presidents have never convened all the justices. Even the ruling in the Mizrahi Bank case, which established the court's authority to overturn laws and is considered the creator of the "legal revolution," was handed down by a panel of nine judges.
Had Justice Hayut chosen to appoint a smaller number of judges, the majority agreeing with her opinion would have been larger, because the tradition is that the president composes the older judges, and among them there is a large number of "activists."
As part of the leak campaign, it was reported that judges were upset that Hayut and Baron's retirement date had put them on an impossible schedule. As such, it seems to me that if it is appropriate to criticize the court, it is for delaying the issuance of judgments, and not for speeding up. And here, too, things have never happened. President Shamgar also sat on the panel of Mizrahi Bank, and after his retirement pressure was exerted on the justices to hurry up in writing their opinions, in order to meet the three-month brace.
Two sides to the solution
And that's not the end of the story. A "senior government official" was quoted as saying: "The ruling could reignite the debate and rift in the middle of a war. This could provoke militants in both camps about what was buried. No government in Israel can act unreasonably after October 7, so this is an unnecessary verdict."
If so, the solution is to abolish the Reasonableness Law, which is actually intended to enable the government to act unreasonably, and in any case the need to issue a judgment will become obsolete.
The writer is Chairman of the Peres Academic Center's Committee on International Academic Relations, and Honorary Vice President of the International Association for Religious Freedom
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