YARIV LEVIN
Last week I mentioned the legislative bombshell
dropped by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and said I would try to relate to it this week.
In doing so my comments are mostly borrowed, because I really know very little
about law.
Many foreign newsoutlets have referred to this this
topic, so I’m assuming you have been following it. Just the same, I’ll add some
of the comments you might have missed. No doubt you will notice some repetition
in the texts I have quoted. I decided to include them for extra emphasis.
Critics accused the government of declaring war against the legal system, saying the plan will upend Israel's system of checks and balances and undermine its democratic institutions by giving absolute power to the most right-wing coalition in the country's history.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a confidant of Prime Minister Netanyahu and a longtime critic of the Supreme
Court, presented his plan a day before the justices were scheduled to debate a controversial new law passed by the government allowing
a politician convicted of tax offenses to serve as a cabinet minister.
The proposals call for a series of sweeping changes aimed at
curbing the powers of the judiciary.
Justice Minister Levin outlined a law that would enable the Knesset to override Supreme
Court decisions with a simple majority of 61 votes. He
also proposed that politicians play a greater role in the appointment of
Supreme Court judges. In addition,
Levin claimed that the public's faith in the
judicial system has plummeted to a historic low, and said he plans to restore authority to the elected
government, hitherto held by overly interventionist judges.
The planned overhaul has already drawn fierce criticism from Israel’s
attorney general and the Knesset opposition parties. Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara
warned that the new government coalition's planned legislative blitz could
leave Israel with democracy in name but not in essence.
Levin presented a planned judicial
overhaul that would
drastically limit the authority of the High Court of Justice to block
legislation and government decisions deemed discriminatory and/or undemocratic,
abolish “reasonableness” as a test by which justices can weigh legality, give
the government control over judicial selection, and eliminate ministry legal
advisers appointed by the attorney general.
Levin said his proposals, which the new government
has vowed to legislate without delay, would restore democracy and strengthen the court.
“Under the leadership of Aharon
Barak [president of Israel’s Supreme Court from 1995 to 2006], it became
extremely activist. This
provoked backlash in Israeli politics.
A reaction that led to a kind of recalibration of the court
where it is still filling
its traditional role of defending fundamental rights and ensuring the integrity
of the political process, but it’s not making up norms left and right, in the
way that it used to. This is my perception. But it’s certainly seen as one of
the leading courts around the world, its decisions are cited by others, and
because of the quality of the judges and the complex issues that Israel faces,
it’s seen as a strong court and an effective court, and in my opinion, a
balanced court.”
“It will be a hollow democracy,” said Amir Fuchs, senior researcher
at Jerusalem’s Israel Democracy Institute think tank. “When the government has
ultimate power, it will use it, not only for issues of LGBTQ rights
and asylum-seekers, but elections and free speech and anything it wants.”
Recent opinion polls by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) found a majority of respondents believe the Supreme Court should
have the power to strike down laws that conflict with Israel’s Basic Laws,
which serve as a sort of constitution.
I tend to rely more on the IDI polls than Yariv
Levin’s uncorroborated claim that the
public has lost faith in the judicial system.
In three extensive television interviews aired recently, Israel’s most revered jurist, the former Supreme
Court president Aharon Barak, pleaded with Justice Minister Yariv Levin to
reconsider the sweeping judicial reforms he unveiled last week. Aharon Barak warned that they essentially give all power to the prime
minister, leave citizens with no defence against the removal of any and all of
their rights, and would mark the beginning of the end of the modern State of
Israel.
Barak has been repeatedly targeted by Levin as the
instigator of decades of untenable intervention of the Supreme Court. “He has relentlessly overruled the country’s elected
politicians via an outrageous abuse of its authority, thus necessitating the
new proposals to radically reduce its power.” Said Levin.
In the most anguished passage of the impassioned
series of interviews, Barak, 86, said he was sorry to be depicted as “the enemy
of the people.” As a justice from 1978-2006, and Supreme Court president in the
last 11 of those years, Barak said that he sought to be neither overly activist
nor overly conservative and to deliver verdicts that took heed of Israel’s
history, Zionism and the country’s security needs.
David Makovsky The Washington Institute For Near East Policy commented; -
“Currently,
domestic issues dominate Israeli political discourse, particularly the proposed
overhaul of the court system, which many believe will place the country on an
illiberal, even undemocratic trajectory. Large swaths of the public are also
concerned that Netanyahu’s junior coalition partners will attempt to limit LGBT
rights, end recognition of non-orthodox Jewish conversions abroad, tighten the
Law of Return’s criteria for Jews immigrating to Israel, and extend major
concessions to ultraorthodox Jews (e.g., continuing their draft exemption;
increasing subsidies to yeshiva students and schools).
I want to conclude on a positive note by
quoting a news item reported by Globes, Israel business
news
“Mekorot Israel National Water
Co. and the Israel Water Authority have
launched the "Reverse Water Carrier" project in the north. The
project will allow desalinated water from the Mediterranean Sea to flow inland
to Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). The aim of the project, which has been set
up at a cost of NIS 1 billion, is to maintain the level of the Kinneret in dry
and low rainfall years.
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https://benisisraelinewsletter.blogspot.com/
Save the link for future reference.
Have a good weekend
Beni, 12th
of January, 2023
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