Political crisis | Netanyahu renounces part of the judicial reform to appease the social tension in Israel

2023-08-06 17:51:09

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, made it known this Sunday that will desist from fully promoting the judicial reform proposed by his government and from now on it will only limit itself to pursuing the change in the composition of the judge selection committee.

“That’s basically what’s left, because I think we should not legislate other things“, the prime minister has made known in an interview broadcast this Sunday by Bloomberg TV, where he explained that his next and last step to follow “would probably be about the composition of the committee that chooses the judges.”

Netanyahu has argued that with this decision he wants to avoid a polarization of the Judiciary, a middle ground between “the most activist judicial court on the planet” and a Parliament trained to “simply annul any decision made by the court.”

“There has to be a balance. That’s what we’re trying to restore.”Netanyahu has indicated about a reform plan subject to unprecedented criticism, which they point to as an attack on the separation of powers due to the immense powers that the Government would have over court decisions.

Netanyahu’s decision to walk away from the rest of the judicial package, something he has not said explicitly before, seems to signal a concession that would be a significant victory for his opponentswho have been demonstrating for more than thirty straight weeks while their complaints have been permeating the country’s military reservists, many of whom have given up their volunteer tasks in protest against the reform.

This resignation means that Netanyahu would give up on other judicial reform plans, such as empowering Parliament to annul certain Supreme Court decisions or allow government ministers to appoint their own legal advisers instead of the current system of independent supervisors.

Remains pending the aforementioned selection process. Judges in Israel are selected by a committee of nine that includes three members of the Supreme Court, two members of the bar association and four politicians, one of whom is traditionally from the opposition.

Netanyahu and his supporters, who see the Supreme Court as a bastion of the country’s liberal mainstream, argue that this system has allowed judges to play too important a role in choosing their successors. Instead, they want to increase the role of politicians and limit that of judges and bar associations.

Opponents counter that because Parliament is controlled by the executive in Israel and in the absence of a firm constitution, the judiciary is the only real check on your policies and for this reason we must maintain the current system, with politicians as far away as possible.

Netanyahu has already achieved partial victories such as the approval, last month, of an amendment that prevents judges from annulling government decisions that considered “insane” during a session that was boycotted by opposition lawmakers. However, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear an appeal to the amendment on September 12.

The government says it wants to negotiate with the opposition over the next two months, when the Knesset is in recess. However, the opposition has not accepted, and has warned that will only negotiate if the government abandons its unilateral push for reform.

Netanyahu has expressed his desire that the Supreme Court not knock down the amendment next September 12, something practically unheard of in the history of Israel. “I hope we don’t get into a constitutional crisis, but I think we won’t. I think there is a way to reach an equitable compromise, which is what I’m trying to do now,” she said.

The prime minister finally dismissed some of the more inflammatory comments made by members of his far-right coalition as out of his control and dismissed concerns that democracy is under threat. “It’s nonsense from my point of view”, has indicated. “But it doesn’t seem that way to them. I see concern in general. And I think there’s a happy medium there,” she said.