Maayan Lubell
Reuters / September 12, 2023
JERUSALEM – Israel’s Supreme Court heard petitions for over 13 hours on Tuesday challenging measures by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to curb the power of judges, a historic hearing in a crisis that has tormented the country for months.
In a packed courtroom which saw all 15 judges sitting together for the first time in Israeli history, watchdog groups appealed against an amendment passed in July ending the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn some government decisions when it deems them “unreasonable”.
Although other tools for voiding executive decisions remain in place, opponents say the amendment removes a vital democratic oversight mechanism in Israel’s political system. The government says its aim is to stop political overreach by unelected judges.
“The cardinal question here is who has the last word,” Ilan Bombach, the government’s representative, told the court.
The crisis has split Israeli society, prompting months of mass demonstrations by protestors who see the right-wing coalition’s overhaul as a threat to democracy. Supporters say the protests aim to subvert parliament and undermine the elected government.
The United States and other Western allies have also voiced concern about the impact of the judicial changes on Israel’s democracy.
A ruling is not expected for weeks or months.
“Can you really hold a discussion of this question, without bias or predisposition, given that it is a matter of your status, your honour?” Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker in Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition and architect of the judicial overhaul, asked the court.
Chief Justice Esther Hayut dismissed suggestions the judges were only concerned with their own position, saying, “We are addressing the public’s vital interests.”
She said the bar for striking down a Basic Law was high and the court would not be voiding laws “every other day” but only when it saw “a fatal blow to the most basic foundations of democracy”.
The showdown pitting the judiciary against the executive and legislature has gripped the nation.
Israeli business and civil society groups say the overhaul risks undermining the economy and driving away investment, and the shekel slid 0.5% during the day.
Significant numbers of military reservists – in the thousands according to protest leaders – have stopped reporting for duty. Netanyahu and some in the military say their action threatens national security.
The government says the Supreme Court has no authority to review amendments to Basic Law, which has a quasi-constitutional status in a country without a formal constitution.
“If the court can cancel Basic Laws, it turns itself into the sovereign instead of the people. This extreme step will undermine democracy’s foundations. This is a red line that must not be crossed,” Netanyahu’s Likud party said in a statement.
Yair Lapid, centrist head of the parliamentary opposition, said the amendment was “warped and thuggish”.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges he denies, says the judicial changes are meant to balance out branches of government. He has been hazy when asked whether he would abide by a ruling that would quash the new law.
Since the coalition started its judicial campaign in January, many Israelis have been rattled by the public protests amid worries about potential flare-ups with the Palestinians, Iran and the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
Netanyahu has said some of the original proposals have been scrapped. But his efforts to reach compromise agreements with opponents on the overhaul have so far been fruitless, adding to fears that Israel’s worst domestic crisis in years will deepen.
With two more appeals scheduled this month and with the court possibly ruling as late as January, analysts said there was still time for both sides to reach agreement on changes.
Writing by Maayan Lubell and Dan Williams; additional reporting by Henriette Chacar; editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Edmund Blair and Mark Heinrich
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Israel braces for constitutional crisis as key legal hearing begins
Thomas Helm
The National / September 12, 2023
High Court is deliberating whether to strike down part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, which opponents say will put an end to democracy in the country.
People across Israel were on tenterhooks on Tuesday as the country’s most senior judges deliberated on whether to overturn a key aspect of the government’s proposed judicial reforms – a decision that could lead to a constitutional crisis.
In one of Israel’s most politically divisive days this year, government ministers lambasted the opposition and legal officials, while opposition politicians slammed the government for being unpatriotic.
In Tel Aviv, the Museum of Art cancelled entry fees and screened the proceedings so that the public could watch the “decisive moment”.
The High Court hearing relates to government-enacted legislation passed in July to revoke a “reasonableness standard”, which gives judges the power to overturn government policies on the basis of their being unreasonable.
If the High Court overturns the legislation and the government ignores that decision, civil servants and security chiefs will have to decide whether to act in accordance with the government or the judiciary’s stance, which could lead to a constitutional crisis.
Opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to drastically weaken the judiciary say that democracy in the country could end if the courts – and a vast anti-government protest movement – cannot halt the process.
Protests against the judicial overhaul began in January and have continued ever since, becoming the largest street demonstrations in Israel’s history.
Government supporters say judicial reform is needed to rein in an excessively powerful and anti-democratic judiciary.
Before the fraught session even began in the High Court on Tuesday morning, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a key architect of the reforms, said the fact that such a hearing was taking place was a “mortal blow to democracy and the status of the Knesset [Israel’s parliament]”.
Levin, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, has consistently taken a hard line on the reforms and pressured the Prime Minister against watering down the plans to seek an agreement with the opposition.
Far-right politician and long-time advocate of reform Simcha Rothman was in attendance to slam the Supreme Court as an “oligarchic regime”.
In a sign of the case’s significance, all 15 justices are hearing the appeal together for the first time in the country’s history, rather than in typical smaller panels. The proceedings were also live-streamed and aired on the country’s main TV stations.
A key issue in the proceedings was whether the judiciary has the power to interfere with government attempts to change quasi-constitutional “Basic Laws”, of which the reasonableness standard is one.
If the court rules in favour of petitioners challenging the government’s law, it will be the first time such a foundational law is disqualified.
Despite harsh questioning from some of the justices, viewed by some as a sign the court will eventually rule against the government, Chief Justice Esther Hayut stressed that her court could only quash a Basic Law if it were to be a “mortal blow” to democracy.
There is no exact date when the court will issue its final ruling, although the result is likely to come within weeks, if not months.
Thomas Helm is Jerusalem Correspondent at The National
