High Court rejects delay on ‘reasonableness’ law hearing
"My parents come here every week, and there was no way I would leave them alone here. We hear every day about exclusion and violence against women, and we will not be trampled on," Barzilai told the crowd.
(TIMES OF ISRAEL) – Israel’s High Court of Justice on Tuesday rejected a government request to delay a hearing on the legality of the “reasonableness” law passed last month, citing the large panel and time constraints that the court must take into account.
The request submitted last week asked that the hearing be postponed by three weeks so that the respondents could prepare adequately.
Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and a key architect of the government’s contentious judicial overhaul, said the court’s refusal to grant an extension was another example of why its powers need to be curbed.
“The High Court has no limits,” he tweeted. “I wanted with all my heart to believe the High Court is not deliberately striving to create a constitutional crisis as part of its war to preserve its excessive power, and at the cost of dragging the State of Israel into dysfunction.”
For the court, the timing is crucial, as Court President Esther Hayut and Justice Anat Baron are set to retire in mid-October. With the issue of appointing new judges at the heart of the overhaul push and Justice Minister Yariv Levin refusing to convene the Judicial Selection Committee in its present form, there are currently no prospects of replacements being named for them.
Facing the very real prospect of a constitutional crisis as the judicial and executive branches question the very rules of the game by which they operate, the judges are determined to rebuff delays that could leave the matter unresolved when Hayut, who has publicly come out against the judicial overhaul, departs. Opposition legislators have accused the government of seeking a delay precisely for that purpose.
Protests against the judicial overhaul were held throughout Israel last Saturday evening for the 33rd straight weekend. Some 100,000 people took part in the main rally in Tel Aviv, Channel 13 reported. Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai sang the national anthem at the demonstration.
“My parents come here every week, and there was no way I would leave them alone here. We hear every day about exclusion and violence against women, and we will not be trampled on,” Barzilai told the crowd.
A moment of silence was held at the start of the rally for the father and son killed in a terror attack in Huwara earlier that day.
Meanwhile, senior military officials last week briefed lawmakers on the readiness of the army amid tensions over the judicial overhaul, during a closed-door meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, warning them that the competence of the Israel Defence Forces would “weaken” further, according to leaks.
More than 10,000 voluntary reservists have said in recent weeks that they would no longer do so in protest of the judicial overhaul, charging that the government’s plans will turn Israel into an undemocratic country.
Cabinet minister Amichai Chikli said on Sunday that Air Force Commander Tomer Bar should initiate an inquiry into his own performance over the conduct of reservists from his corps who have urged comrades to decline to serve in protest of the government’s policies.
Coalition whip Ofir Katz said last week that the government plans to pass an IDF draft law intended to settle Charedi exemptions in the next Knesset session, before it resumes legislating the rest of the coalition’s judicial overhaul.
But a Sunday meeting of coalition leaders aimed at bridging gaps between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and a pair of ultra-Orthodox parties over the legislation exempting Charedi yeshivah students from military service ended with no major breakthroughs.
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