The same basic law will establish for the first time the authority of the Supreme Court to annul laws, but according to the same proposal, the annulment of a law can only be done by a majority of 12 judges out of 15, who will meet for that purpose in an expanded composition.
At the same time, Levin intends to say that he will support the creation of defined standards for the supreme intervention in the decisions of the government and the Knesset, so that the possibility of using subjective intervention grounds such as “reasonableness”, “good faith” and “proportionality” will be reduced. Levin believes that it is not the role of the court to replace the politicians who operate the officials, since the judges do not have excess expertise over the decision makers.
According to Levin’s approach, the Supreme Court should deal mainly with disputes and criminal and civil appeals, and not replace the people through its representatives in the Knesset and the government. Levin also supports the transparency of legal proceedings in petitions in public matters, including live broadcasting of High Court hearings.
Opposition leader Lapid published a sharp response to Levin’s plans and noted that “not only will we fight in every possible way against each and every one of the measures that Levin’s opponent will announce tonight, I am announcing in advance that we will cancel them the day we return to power. Those who carry out a unilateral revolution to the system of the regime in Israel should know that we are not obligated to it in any way.”
The changes in the legal system: an interview with Nellie Rosman Gliss (Photo: Zimrom Productions)
The legal advisor to the government, Gali Beharev-Miara, officially announced this afternoon that she opposes the appointment of Shas chairman Aryeh Deri as minister. In her response to the High Court, which will hear tomorrow the petition against Deri’s appointment as Minister of the Interior and Health, the ombudsman said that “in the counsel’s position and according to the ruling of the Supreme Court, the clear conclusion in the circumstances of the matter is that his appointment as minister radically exceeds the realm of reasonableness and is void.” The advisor’s response comes a few days after she announced that she would not be able to defend Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s position on the issue, which requires approval of his appointment, while she believes that the appointment is unlikely.
In her answer, Beharve-Miara added that the petitions regarding the amendment of the Basic Law legislation should be rejected: the government “since the manner in which the legal possibility to invalidate Basic Laws was developed in the ruling due to misuse of the authority of the Knesset to enact Basic Laws, does not allow the court to intervene in the amendment of the Basic Law.” However, she noted: “The amendment is not intended to solve a general problem, but rather to change the legal consequences of a criminal conviction on the tenure of a minister, and to allow a certain member of the Knesset, who was convicted by law, to be appointed to the position of minister, without the question of scandal being examined by the chairman of the election committee.” .
Therefore, according to her, “the authority of the Knesset to enact fundamental laws of the Knesset is not intended to regulate the individual affairs of members of the Knesset and the difficulty intensifies because these are sensitive and valuable issues of moral purity, while changing the ‘rules of the game’ after the elections.” Beharve-Miara said at the beginning of her answer to the High Court that “these petitions raise weighty issues, on the most important issues imaginable – the authority of the Israeli Knesset to enact and amend basic laws; Along with the standards and considerations relevant to the appointment of a minister in the government of Israel.”
The ombudsman noted that in 2015 and 2016 the Supreme Court had already determined that Deri’s appointment as a minister was “at the limit of the realm of plausibility”, even though 13 years had passed since the last conviction at the time. Now, in her opinion, the additional conviction for committing two criminal offenses last year, brings the His appointment as one that crosses the realm of reasonableness. “This is the starting point of the legal discussion,” she said.
Deri was appointed minister after the basic law: the government was changed, so that only actual imprisonment can prevent such an appointment. Deri was convicted at the beginning of the year of tax offenses, and was sentenced to a suspended prison term. Beharve-Miara opposed the amendment of the law. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu claimed through his representatives that “interference in the enactment of fundamental laws is unusual and precedential” – and therefore the petition against the appointment must be rejected.