A protester walks past a banner depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on sunset outside the Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem on February 20, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP
Israel’s President on Tuesday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to seek dialogue and compromise after it pushed ahead with a controversial judicial overhaul in a turbulent parliamentary session overnight.
Isaac Herzog said it was a “difficult morning” following the late-night parliamentary vote that saw two contentious pieces of legislation — part of sweeping changes that have prompted vocal criticism in Israel and abroad — pass a preliminary hurdle.
Critics say the judicial overhaul underway will concentrate power in the hands of the ruling coalition in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, and erode the democratic system of checks and balances. Netanyahu and his allies insist the changes will better curb an overly powerful Supreme Court.
“Many citizens across Israeli society, many people who voted for the coalition, are fearful for national unity,” Mr. Herzog said at a conference organized by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. He urged Mr. Netanyahu and his allies to enable dialogue to reach a consensus on judiciary reform.
Mr. Herzog’s remarks came the morning after tens of thousands of Israelis protested outside the Knesset ahead of the vote, the second mass demonstration in Jerusalem in recent weeks. Israeli Palestinians, a minority that may have the most to lose by the overhaul, have mostly stayed on the sidelines, due to discrimination they face at home and Israel’s ongoing 55-year occupation of their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank.
After more than seven hours of debate that dragged on after midnight, Mr. Netanyahu and his allies passed two clauses in the package of proposed changes that seek to weaken the country’s Supreme Court and further empower ruling parliamentary coalitions.
With a 63-47 vote, the Knesset approved measures that give the governing coalition control over judicial appointments and curtail the Supreme Court’s ability to review “Basic Laws” that have a quasi-constitutional role in Israel, which doesn’t have a formal constitution. The Bills still require two additional readings in parliament to pass into law.
Also planned are proposals that would give the Knesset the power to overturn Supreme Court rulings and control the appointment of government legal advisers. The advisers currently are professional civil servants and critics say the new system would politicize government ministries.
The U.S. has called for restraint, and on Tuesday, the UN human rights chief called on Israel “to pause the proposed legislative changes and open them up for wider debate and reflection.”
“Such issues at the heart of rule of law deserve the fullest consideration in order to ensure that any changes promote, rather than diminish, the ability of the judiciary — and other branches of Government — to protect the rights of all people in Israel,” Volker Türk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
According to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute think tank published Tuesday, 66% of respondents think the Supreme Court should have the authority to strike down laws incompatible with the Basic Laws, and 63% think the current system for picking judges — a panel made up of politicians, judges and attorneys — should be maintained.
Almost three-quarters of the 756 respondents — 72% — said there should be compromise between the opposing political camps about proposed judicial changes.
Mr. Herzog, who serves as the largely symbolic head of state, has tried to broker dialogue between the increasingly polarised camps and has called on Mr. Netanyahu and his allies to delay the contentious judicial overhaul.
Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is made up of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties and took office in late December, after the country’s fifth parliamentary elections in less than four years. The political deadlock was largely over the long-time leader’s fitness to serve as prime minister while on trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes, charges Mr. Netanyahu has denied.
