A former Likud justice minister said on Wednesday that a controversial planned judicial overhaul would destroy the country’s legal system and leave citizens without protection from the actions of the government.
Likud centrist Dan Meridor, who served in several Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinets before leaving politics in 2014, said the premier is exercising “a will to destroy a judicial system built over 70 years”.
“If these things go through, the whole house is facing destruction,” Meridor told the Knesset panel.
“I have been in this house for many years in various positions, I have seen many arguments and many discussions. There were difficult discussions in which we even reached agreement, but I never believed we would reach this day,” Meridor said, according to the Ynet news site.
“The result would be the removal of all protections of an individual against the ruling power. When judges are politically elected, what would a person think when he comes before a judge and he knows that he is facing Shas or a member of another party? Meridor said.
“This campaign is being conducted in a country that, as we know, has no constitution, [where] The Knesset is controlled by the government and the judiciary is the only one that can protect the heart of the law,” he said.
Prominent Israeli constitutional law professor Suzy Navot. (Etiquette)
last month, meridor Guilty Netanyahu has put his ambition for power ahead of the country’s best interests, selling out Israel’s democratic character to win over coalition partners by accepting controversial demands.
The judicial overhaul proposed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin would significantly limit the High Court of Justice’s power of judicial review of the law; allow the Knesset to re-enact laws if the court nullifies them; giving the government control over judicial appointments; Turn the ministry’s legal advisers into political appointees, and make their advice non-binding.
Netanyahu and his government have supported sweeping changes needed to rebalance power between a so-called active judiciary and the people’s elected representatives. Attorney General Ghali Baharaw-Miara, Supreme Court President Esther Huyut and political opposition leaders have attacked the proposals as destructive to democracy and dangerous to civil liberties.
One of Israel’s leading constitutional scholars, Prof. Suji Navot, in an interview with Channel 12 on Wednesday, criticized the government’s position that reforms to the judicial appointment process were necessary because politicians choose judges in most other democracies.
“Israel is the only democracy where our High Court is the only institution that can limit the power of the government,” Navot said, explaining that the independence of the court is important because Israel does not have similar features in other democracies, such as a constitutional Formally protected rights and two Houses of Parliament that exercise control over each other.
“As in most democracies today, there is a tendency to move to the Israeli system, which limits the power of politicians, and balances them with professional views and the work of other advisory bodies,” he said, explaining that another The system could only work if Israel had a constitution.
Navot said it would be difficult to know what Israel would look like after the reforms, noting that as it stands, “today the Knesset does not have the authority to harm, destroy, or eliminate the basic values of the state.” No and not democratic values.
Navot suggested that if a modest majority of 61 seats in the Knesset wanted to turn Israel into a fully secular state, “we would also say that the body does not have the authority to overturn the basic principles of governance.”
When asked what reforms should be made to the justice system, Navot replied: “First, turn to the citizens and ask, what bothers you?”
“Citizens are upset that a criminal case may take five or seven years. Justice delayed is not justice delayed,” he said, suggesting the creation of a court above district courts that could handle appeals and reduce the load on the Supreme Court, which handles such requests.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin speaks during a constitution committee meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem on January 11, 2023. (Jonathan Sindel/Flash90)
Levin argued on Monday that Netanyahu’s impeachment convinced the public of the need to reduce the powers of the judiciary, adding for the first time a package of his controversial laws aimed at handling the premier’s legal woes in the courts. from.
Critics of the government have long accused Netanyahu and allied lawmakers of seeking to circumvent the court system to avoid criminal charges against the prime minister. While Levin did not characterize Netanyahu’s lawsuit as the impetus for the judicial change he presented earlier this month, his comments at the Knesset plenum underscored the tangle of political and personal interests surrounding the hot-button issue.
Also on Wednesday, the High Court disqualified ruling leader Arye Deri from holding a ministerial post in a dramatic decision, setting the stage for demonstrations between the government and the court.
