The first part of the highly controversial Alliance judicial overhaul package The government’s control over the selection of judges will be brought to the Knesset plenum for a first reading either this Wednesday or next Monday.
The bill, a committee-sponsored amendment to the Basic Law: Judiciary that would give the government an automatic majority on the judicial selection committee, was approved for sending to the plenum. stormy hearing Monday of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s office said there was no intention to delay the vote despite the first reading. President Isaac Herzog’s call to hold off on legislative proceedings to consider the compromise proposals presented on Sunday night.
After a committee-sponsored bill has been approved, after a period of 48 hours it may be brought up for vote in plenary, unless an exception is requested from the Knesset House committee, which is the judicial selection committee for the bill. Was not in the case. ,
Once approved in the first reading, the law, which also prevents High Court justices from exercising judicial review over basic laws, is returned to the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee in plenum to prepare for its second and third readings. will come, who will formally pass the bill into law.
Religious Judaism MK Simcha Rothman, who heads the Law Committee, and Levin indicated after Herzog’s speech that they might be open to dialogue and even some compromise but that legislation for that purpose Will not delay.
MK Simcha Rothman, chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, debates during a committee hearing, Feb. 13, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Yisrael Beiteinu MK Yulia Malinovsky said, however, that passing the law in the first reading was an open threat to the opposition, and that negotiation was impossible under such circumstances.
“He has a loaded gun on the table, no, a loaded Uzi. Can you hold a conversation in such a situation?” he told The Times of Israel.
MK also noted that after Monday’s committee votes, Rothman continued hearings on legislation dealing with other aspects of the government’s overhaul of the judiciary, most notably the override clause that effectively shields the Knesset from judicial review by the High Court. to be immune from any law allowed to be made. Justice.
Malinowski insisted that there could be no talks with the coalition on a resolution to a settlement until the coalition halted the legislative process.
