Not everything important is riveting to watch.
Proof of that came Sunday, when the High Court of Justice aired its hearing of petitions asking it to disqualify Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a government because of his indictments on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The court’s hearing against the coalition agreement between Likud and Blue and White is scheduled to be streamed live on Monday as well.
Some have likened the hearings, and that they are being broadcast for all to see, to a trimmed down, two-day version of prolonged US presidential impeachment hearings. Israel has never seen anything quite like this before.
The hearings are undoubtedly important, with some arguing that they are among the most important the court has ever heard. The special 11-judge panel will essentially decide whether Netanyahu is fit to hold office. If it rules against him, it will send the country spiraling to a fourth election within 18 months. It will also go a long way toward calibrating the balance of powers between the judiciary, executive and legislative branches of government.
But along with being important, the seven-hour proceedings on Sunday were tedious, highly technical and full of references to clauses and subclauses of laws and court decisions that the public is not all that well versed in.
In other words, the Watergate hearings it wasn’t.
In fact, it did not even reach the drama of the impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump in the US House of Representative and then in the Senate a few months ago. Those proceedings, though they lacked the drama of Watergate because most knew that the House would vote to draw up articles of impeachment, but the Senate would acquit, did feature some surprising testimony and provide its share of tension and emotional moments.
Sunday’s hearing, however, lacked both. First of all, there was no testimony, and the legalistic arguments for and against the court intervening to prevent Netanyahu from forming the government were difficult to follow if one was not extremely well versed in the cases and laws being quoted about various jurisdictional issues.
Second, whenever one of the lawyers strayed from a pure legalistic argument, one of the judges would intervene and say that they are interested in hearing legal arguments, not populism. Argue the case, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut rebuked one of the petitioners at one point; don’t grandstand about the court being the last bastion to save Israel’s democracy. The judges overruled any emotion-filled arguments, quashing any good judicial theater.
This was only the fifth time in Israel’s 72 years that court proceedings have been broadcast, with the first two cases having to do with the Holocaust: the trials of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 and John Demjanjuk in 1986.
In 2004, approval to broadcast court sessions was given. but it took until 2014 for an actual session to be broadcast – and that was only via an audio feed.
In March, however, Hayut approved live broadcasts that would begin after the coronavirus crisis passed, with plans calling for one hearing of particular importance to be aired each month. Last month, Hayut allowed the fifth-ever broadcast of court proceedings: the hearing dealing with the Shin Bet’s (Israel Security Agency) use of cellphones to track people’s movements as part of the war on coronavirus.
Why the court’s sudden willingness to make its hearings public? Because with the court now at the center of a very public and contentious dispute over its power – with half the country seeing it as the last and greatest safeguard of democracy, and the other half viewing it as a body that badly overreached and has arrogated too much power to itself – the judges have an interest in showing the public how the court works.
Broadcasting court proceedings is meant to provide transparency, thereby improving the public’s impression of the court. The hope is that if the public is exposed to the workings of the court, if it sees the learned and measured way in which the discussions are held, it will understand that the Supreme Court is not the power-hungry demon it is often made out to be.
While the idea of making the court’s discussions accessible to the wider public is laudable, it is doubtful how much influence this will have on the public’s perception because it is unlikely to draw an enormous viewing audience.
Supreme Court cases are, and should be, dry, legalistic and technical. This is not The Good Wife, nor the type of political theater provided by US politicians who – during an impeachment procedure – often use the opportunity to grandstand.
Broadcasting court proceedings might dispel misperceptions of the court and how it works, but that is only if the masses watch it. But because the proceedings are so dry and technical – even in as dramatic a case as whether Netanyahu can be mandated with forming a government – only those seriously invested in the issue will stay tuned in.