Activists rallied outside the home of Justice Minister Yariv Levin to protest his judicial reforms on Friday morning as legal experts and authorities leveled dramatic warnings and criticisms against the plan.
Around a hundred activists from the civil society movement Darkenu argued that the High Court of Justice protected IDF soldiers from international lawfare campaigns.
The High Court is the flak jacket of IDF soldiers, it is protection for our sons and daughters that serve in the army, from attempts to petition against IDF soldiers at the International Criminal Court in The Hague," warned Darkenu CEO and former Kulanu MK Rachel Azaria. "The Override clause and Levin's moves to weaken the justice system would hurt IDF soldiers, and hurting our soldiers is a red line. We demand from Minister Yariv Levin not to abandon our soldiers to the Hague, and to stop the escalation."
A 2020 ICC investigation was announced to investigate war crimes allegations in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. However, in December annual court reports showed little to no movement on the investigation.
Israeli lawyers compare US Capitol Riot to judicial reforms
Israel Bar association president Avi Himi also took an intense line of attack against the reform, comparing the reforms to the 2021 January 6 US Capitol riots on the anniversary of the event.
"Today we mark in the USA two years since the anti-democratic assault on the Capitol. Now we also have an attack on the Israeli Capitol — On the courts," Himi said at a Movement for Quality Government conference. "The public did not choose to the course of the ship, to crush the courts and for tyrannical rule."
Himi said that without the courts, democracy could no longer be guaranteed, citing events in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Russia as proof that the mortal ailing of democracy began with the neutering of the courts.
"There is no liberal state without judicial review and without limits to government power," said Himi. "The Bar association will continue to stand for the rights of the judicial system."
On Thursday, Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) President Prof. Yedidia Stern issued a statement against the politicization of the judicial system, calling for debates about the scope of the court's powers and independence from the political system to be done in a balanced manner.
"The question of the relationship between politics and law should not be decided according to one’s affiliation with one political camp or the other," said Stern. "This is a question that deserves to be discussed in a substantive manner, with a careful examination of the benefits and risks to the public relating to each of the proposals on their own merits."
Levin announced his legal reform proposal on Wednesday, the day before a vital hearing on the reasonableness of Shas Chairman Arye Deri's ministerial appointment and the amendment to Israel's quasi-constitutional Basic Laws that allowed for the ascension to the role despite his past criminal sentences.
In the plan, Levin called for the regulation of judicial review, , saying that the striking of laws would require a special majority.
“No more court hearings on Basic Laws,” Levin said on Wednesday. “No more disqualification of Knesset laws without authority. Instead, the court will act within the Basic Laws and will not be above them.”
He also called for the end of the use of the reasonableness clause, a legal principle key to the petition against Deri's appointment. The principle allows for legal recourse against administration that is beyond the scope of what a reasonable authority would engage in. Levin argued that the clause was a principle that was highly subjective and was an excuse for judges to implement their own opinions.
Levin's reforms criticized by former High Court vice chief
Former High Court vice president Elyakim Rubinstein criticized the Levin reforms at the Friday Movement conference, saying that the reasonableness clause was the basis for helping the weak against arbitrary decisions, and should not be overturned.
As Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara butted heads with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government about the appointment of Deri as Interior and Health minister, and as coalition members called for the division of the office, Levin said that his plan would bring to heel insubordinate government legal advisors.
Rubinstein said that "Legal advisors never fail a minister's legal policy. Turning legal advisors into servants creates two damages — politicization of the civil service and hurt the professionalism of public servants. This is not governance, but anti-governance."
Also according to the plan, the makeup of the Judicial Appointments Committee would also change, adding two more political representatives, giving politicians a majority.
"A hearing for [selecting] judges with be an excellent show, but a terrible way to choose judges," said Rubinstein.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Levin's proposal was the Override Clause, which had been discussed during campaigning in the 2022 general election. The clause would allow a simple majority of Knesset Members to overturn decisions by the High Court.