Knesset speaker: Supreme Court must stop trampling Knesset
Judge Uzi Fogelman becomes head of Central Elections Committee.
By GIL HOFFMANKnesset Speaker Yariv Levin speaks at a meeting of the Central Elections Committee, July 7, 2020(photo credit: ADINA WALLMAN/KNESSET SPOKESWOMAN)
Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin harshly criticized the Supreme Court at a meeting of the Central Elections Committee on Tuesday.The committee met at the Knesset to officially install Supreme Court Justice Uzi Vogelman as its new chairman in place of Neal Hendel.Levin complained that the court had recently overturned committee decisions on disqualifying candidates for the Knesset and other moves.“The sovereignty of the people has been taken and replaced by a decision of a small group of judges,” he said. “Elections for the Knesset have become ceremonial, in which we citizens elect our representatives in the Knesset only to see others decide instead of them. On the one hand, the Supreme Court tramples the decisions of the Knesset and its laws, and on the other, the judges run the process of elections.”The Supreme Court justices were becoming “players on the political playing field,” Levin said, adding that “the damage caused to the entire government and especially the court itself was very heavy.”Vogelman responded by defending the court and noting it was the Knesset that decided to have a Supreme Court judge run elections.“We will continue doing our job well, without fear, according to what the law says, while respecting the other branches of government,” he told the committee.Levin expressed hope that the current government would last, leaving the committee plenty of time to prepare for the next election.Interior Minister Arye Deri beseeched his political colleagues to not let an election happen anytime soon.“It is forbidden to go to a fourth election,” he said. “History would never ever forgive us – not our children, not our grandchildren, not the poor sectors, not those who cannot afford to make it through the month.”
