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Despite citizen and opposition protest, the Israeli parliament approved two laws of the controversial justice reform promoted by the extreme right-wing sectors in power. One grants an absolute majority to the government to appoint judges. The other limits the ability of the High Supreme Court to discuss fundamental laws. According to analyst Alberto Spektorowski, the only thing that interests Netanyahu about this reform is that it saves him from the corruption trial against him.
►►To listen to the full interview, click on the play icon►►
What a shame! It was the cry this Monday of the deputies of the Israeli opposition to the extreme right party Religious Zionism inside the Parliament (Knesset), during the vote on the justice reform presented by the extreme right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Outside, thousands of protesters, carrying the blue and white Israeli flag and chanting “Save democracy” or “Country morally bankrupt”, marched for the seventh consecutive week against this bill that seeks to increase the power of elected officials over that of the magistrates
In an interview with Radio France International, Albert SpektorowskiProfessor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University, explains how the promoters of this reform seek without concessions to “destroy the liberal rule of law in Israel.”
“The reform has a very clear content. It is to empty the independence of the High Court of Justice so that it does not intervene in government decisions. For more or less 30 years, a campaign has been going on against the High Court of Justice, which acts as a Constitutional Court when it is or is not. Obviously, these interventions by the Court of Justice are something very accepted by us liberals, democrats, etc.: respect for human rights. Let’s say that it is about limiting actions that are too unreasonable on the part of the government, cutting laws that could be shameful.
And what this judicial reform intends is to change the weight of the decision and pass it on to the politicians and not to the Court of Justice. That is to say, that politicians can decide by majority in Parliament and that the High Court of Justice cannot decree anything they decide, which is unconstitutional. When these laws are approved, the High Court of Justice will have very little decision on what Parliament and the Executive Branch do.
►►To listen to the full interview, click on the play icon►►
RFI: Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the end of December after managing to form one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel, the result of an alliance between his right-wing party, Likud, with far-right parties and ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups. Critics of justice reform claim that Netanyahu is giving up Israel’s democratic character only to escape imprisonment for corruption and to benefit some of his allies.
Albert Spektorowski: Exactly. Netanyahu’s intention is to avoid the trial against him. But paradoxically, Netanyahu is an old-style liberal. He is one of those who would not like major changes in the High Court of Justice. He would be one of the important points for this reform to be much more moderate than expected. And the other character who is not on trial, but who cannot be a minister, the famous Arie Dery, is also extremely moderate. The only two moderates in a far-right cabinet and neither of them can directly intervene in these decisions that are being made because they are prohibited by the Court of Justice!
It is a very serious paradox, very serious. The two corrupt and the two moderates in terms of reform, the only thing that serves them from said reform is to catapult their trial, in the case of Netanyahu, and in the case of Dery, to return to being minister. On the other hand, inside the cabinet there are people from the hard extreme right, who are not corrupt, people who are very firm in their convictions and who work very seriously and they are not willing to give up because they really want to destroy the State of liberal right.
RFI: But they are the ones who allowed Netanyahu to win. And in that sense, one can believe that Netanyahu lets this reform – which is theirs – pass as a bargaining chip.
Albert Spektorowski: You just said it and that is the way to interpret it. Netanyahu rode up on these people’s horse and, well, now he’s attached to them. They too. Without Netanyahu they would not be in government either. In other words, one owes the other. But, after they helped him get into government, I am almost convinced that if he can change the coalition along the way, he will change it. If he can have a much more moderate coalition, he would. The only thing that interests him, as we already said, is to overcome his charges with justice.