The judicial overhaul bill on judicial review and the override clause will be put before the Knesset plenum after a revision of the draft was rejected in a vote by the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Sunday morning.
Judicial review, the High Court of Justice’s ability to strike down legislation that contradicts Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws, could only be activated by an extended bench with an 80% majority in agreement if the bill passed.
The bill that was voted on in committee on Sunday also contained provisions for an override clause. With a simple majority, the Knesset would be able to prevent the court from striking legislation up to a year after the overriding Knesset had been dissolved.
The Knesset will review this bill in a preliminary reading.
When will voting be finalized?
The first part of the committee vote was held last Wednesday. While the bill had passed, much to the chagrin of his coalition allies, committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman determined that opposition members hadn’t received enough time to voice their opinions, in particular, United Arab List MK Mansour Abbas.
Abbas struck a diplomatic tone when speaking to the committee, thanking Rothman for the opportunity to have his say. He said that the goal that was before them was to find a balance for each provision and a corresponding power in other branches and to come to an agreement, as they were changing the rules of the political game.
As is, these bills would harm the rights of all citizens, Abbas warned. The subject isn’t just a legal matter, but also about the relationship between the government powers.
Abbas called for all the ideas to be put back on the table and reviewed, and to slow down and commence negotiations.
Opposition members implored the coalition to take note of the extreme opposition to the reforms made evident by the massive protests that have gripped the country now entering their tenth week.
“The situation of the country has never been worse,” said Yesh Atid MK Karine Elharrar. “And this is two months after you’ve been elected.”
A major day of protests is expected to be held on Thursday, and the probability of negotiations seems unlikely.
Rothman said on Twitter on Sunday morning that he heard that Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman was unwilling to negotiate, but the law committee chairman contended that he would have been willing to vote on a law previously proposed by Liberman’s party that would have allowed for soft judicial review.
Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky responded that Rothman was being manipulative, as this was much larger than just the matter of judicial review, such as the Judicial Selection Committee.
The Knesset was expected to vote on Sunday to defer the March 15 appointments to the Judicial Selection Committee by four months. According to critics, this would allow the coalition more time to pass the other bills that the panel is seeking to pass.
The bill would change the composition of the selection committee to give elected officials a majority, removing two members of the Israel Bar Association.
Rothman and Labor MK Gilad Kariv are set to meet the Bar association on Thursday to discuss the proposed changes.
The law committee also held a discussion on the efficiency and workload of the High Court, which Rothman said would be improved if the standing of the court were to be reduced.
According to the committee, 901,000 new court cases were opened in 2022, an increase of 60,000 on the number in 2021 and there were only 806 judges and 76 registrars to address this workload.
“The courts’ load is mainly due to a judicial system that increases legal uncertainty, the court’s preoccupation with issues that it doesn’t have to deal with and conditions that negate clear rules that reduce judicial discretion,” said Rothman.
Kariv argued that it was improper to tie the issue to the reform.
The courts’ efficiency and the number of judges were also matters addressed in President Isaac Herzog’s five-point negotiation framework.
As the “Deri Law 2” and Impairment Law continued to be prepared in a special committee for return to the Knesset for readings on Sunday, critics have appealed to the Knesset legal adviser to intervene as they point to a conflict of interest for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Movement for Quality Government said that Netanyahu shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the vote for the Impairment Law, which would change the conditions for which the prime minister would be deemed unfit for office.
The new bill specifies that the prime minister could only be determined as unfit on medical grounds through a special procedure in the Knesset committee and plenum.
In the Special Committee for Amendments to Basic Law: Government, it had been argued that the rarely-implemented provision was unclear in its wording that it pertained to medical conditions.
The Movement for Quality Government argued that this bill was being advanced for personal reasons. The NGO had in February filed a petition to the High Court of Justice arguing that Netanyahu should be declared unfit to serve due to his conflict of interest between the reform and his ongoing corruption trials.
“The Impairment Law designed to allow Netanyahu to continue subordinating the needs of the state to his legal needs is a disgrace,” said movement attorney Hidi Negev. “The entire purpose of the law is to intervene in a legal proceeding pending in the High Court – but it may be that in future we will already have to deal with the problems that this law creates with regard to the impossible freedom it grants to rulers in Israel.”
Labor MK Efrat Rayten also said on Sunday before the special committee session that the coalition was changing the rules of the game for Netanyahu, and that the “entire Knesset works with him to influence his trial.”
Israeli media had also reported in late January that the Attorney-General’s Office was weighing declaring Netanyahu unfit for service on these grounds. The Attorney-General’s Office denied these reports. Legal experts have told The Jerusalem Post that such a move has a shaky legal basis, as the provision for declaring a prime minister unfit for office is for medical matters, even if not explicitly defined as such in the current version.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara had declared the conflict of interest agreement negotiated by her predecessor, Avichai Mandelblit, in effect. The agreement barred Netanyahu from involving himself in appointments of law officials. Baharav-Miara has confirmed that Netanyahu’s involvement in the ongoing judicial reforms would violate the agreement.