In Israel, the revival of the reform of the Supreme Court revives the demonstrations

2023-07-11 15:00:19
Protesters block the highway that runs along Israel’s coast near Haifa (north) on July 11. ARIEL SCHALIT/AP

The highway which runs along the coast of Israel was again blocked, Tuesday July 11 in the morning, by demonstrators, near Haifa (north). Police water cannons again dispersed protesters camping on the main access road into Jerusalem through the mountains. The Israelis opposed to the reform of justice, wanted by the coalition of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, planned a large rally, another one, during the day, at Ben-Gurion airport. In response, the Minister of Energy, Israel Katz, called for the arrest of one of the leaders of this rally, guilty according to him of“calls for mutiny and civil disobedience”.

Israel goes back in time. The country is returning to the boiling of spring, these demonstrations of historic magnitude which had forced Mr. Netanyahu to decree a « pause » in its reform, at the end of March, in order to engage in negotiations with the opposition. She withdrew from it in mid-June, denouncing the bad faith of the parties in power, determined, according to her, to pass their reform in force. The demonstrations continued during these long months, at a lower noise.

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The protesters speak of the tactics of the « salami ». They fear that this fundamental overhaul of the balance of power, for the benefit of the executive, will be imposed in small increments, in order to make it more digestible. Their mobilization responds to the vote, Monday at first reading in Parliament, of an amendment to the fundamental law of the country regulating the functioning of the judicial institution.

A safeguard

This text could be adopted in second and third readings before the end of July and the summer break. It deprives the Supreme Court of one of its most powerful and controversial weapons: the ability to censure government action as “unreasonable”. It is a legacy of Anglo-Saxon law and the British mandate over Palestine (1922-1948), recalls a former Supreme Court judge, who wishes to remain anonymous, fearing to appear as a partisan. The Court almost never invokes it against general policy guidelines, on which it refrains from legislating.

But she regularly uses it to refuse executive appointments and administrative decisions, including those of local authorities. This very broad criterion allows them to intervene on ethical issues, to point out risks of corruption or conflict of interest, without having to qualify them on the merits. It is a safeguard, the mere existence of which imposes a certain restraint on the executive. At the beginning of 2023, the Court invoked this reason to refuse a ministry to the main ally of Mr. Netanyahu, the ultra-Orthodox Arie Déri, ​​boss of the Shass party (religious and Sephardic) convicted of tax evasion.

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