Judicial overhaul to be passed by end of March

Israel’s new government intends to pass its sweeping legislative agenda for an overhaul of Israel’s legal and judicial system by the end of March.

According to an official in the office of MK Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the different pieces of legislation making up the planned major reform are currently being drawn up and will be presented to the government’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation in the coming weeks.

Once there is general agreement among the different coalition parties, the legislation will be submitted to the Knesset as government bills, with the goal being to pass the reforms by the end of the Knesset winter session which will end shortly before Passover.

The Likud’s agreements with all coalition parties, apart from Noam, include clauses requiring the passage of a new basic law, legislation that will include a High Court override mechanism. The deals all emphasise that overhauling the judicial system will be given utmost priority.

Unveiled by Justice Minister Yariv Levin on January 4, just six days after the hard-right coalition took office, the overhaul provides for severely restricting the High Court’s capacity to strike down laws and government decisions; passing an “override clause” enabling the Knesset to re-legislate such laws; giving the government control over the selection of judges; preventing the court from using a test of “reasonableness” against which to judge legislation and government decisions; and allowing ministers to appoint their own legal advisers, instead of getting counsel from advisers operating under the aegis of the Justice Ministry.

Should the High Court of Justice annul the appointment of Shas leader Aryeh Deri as interior and health minister, the override mechanism will be expedited to countermand the court’s decision and reinstate Deri to his cabinet portfolios.

The proposed reforms have faced withering criticism from former Supreme Court judges, former attorneys-general, legal scholars and other jurists.

Former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, who greatly expanded the court’s judicial review of the legislature in the 1990s, said the reforms would lead to a “tyranny of the majority”, would essentially give all power to the prime minister and would mark the beginning of the end of the modern State of Israel.

Barak said the civil rights of “Jew, Arab, ultra-Orthodox, not ultra-Orthodox – are in grave danger”, and that the proposed reforms constituted “a chain with which to strangle Israeli democracy”.

Levin rejected Barak’s comments, asserting that his proposals were backed by “vast parts of the public” who elected the new government.

“I’m not changing all the rules of the democratic game. I’m restoring democracy,” he claimed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also pushed back on Sunday against criticism of the controversial overhaul.

“The claim that this reform is the end of democracy is baseless,” he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

“The truth is that the balance between the branches in the governmental system has been violated over the last two decades, and even more so in recent years.

“The attempt to restore the correct balance between the branches is not the destruction of democracy, but the strengthening of democracy.”

Thousands of Israelis turned out last Saturday night in Tel Aviv to protest against the new government, after Levin unveiled the plans.

According to organisers, over 10,000 protesters gathered for the rally at the city’s Habima Square.

Prominent US lawyer Alan Dershowitz, long a staunch defender of Israel’s policies on the international stage, said on Sunday he cannot defend the sweeping judicial reforms, which he said pose a threat to civil liberties and minority rights in Israel.

“If I were in Israel I would be joining the protests,” Dershowitz told Army Radio.

“It will make it much more difficult for people like me who try to defend Israel in the international court of public opinion to defend them effectively,” he said. “It would be a tragedy to see the Supreme Court weakened.”

However, Dershowitz stressed there is “major confusion” between democracy and civil liberties and that “Israel’s democracy is not in danger; indeed the reforms are designed to improve democracy, majority rule.”

He said, “What is in danger are civil liberties, minority rights.”

There is “a direct conflict between pure democracy, where the Knesset rules … and the right of minorities and civil rights which the Supreme Court is designed to protect,” he explained.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid has vowed to “cancel” the reforms should he return to power.

TIMES OF ISRAEL, AP