Die von der Regierung seit ihrer Vereidigung vor einem Jahr massiv vorangetriebene Justizreform hatte die israelische Gesellschaft tief gespalten. Über Monate gingen immer wieder Hunderttausende von Menschen auf die Straße, um dagegen zu protestieren – sie sahen im Vorgehen der Regierung eine Gefahr für Israels Demokratie.
Netanyahus Regierung argumentierte dagegen, das Gericht sei in Israel zu mächtig, man wolle lediglich ein Gleichgewicht wiederherstellen.
The reasonableness law, an amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary, prohibits courts, including the High Court, from reviewing government and ministerial decisions using the „reasonableness“ standard. This standard permits the court to annul decisions based on substantive issues with the considerations behind them.
It was passed last year amid furious protests that saw hundreds of thousands Israelis take to rallies in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere across Israel.
– Twelve out of 15 Supreme Court judges ruled that the court has the authority to conduct judicial oversight on basic laws and intervene in extreme cases when the Knesset oversteps its legislative authority.
– The law was the first piece of legislation of Netanyahu‘s judicial overhaul — a plan that destabilized Israel‘s economy, military and foreign relations.
The Supreme Court struck down the law in an 8-7 vote.
Twelve of the 15 justices agree the court does have the authority to strike down Basic Laws.
(38 min ago)
Hebrew media outlets report that the High Court of Justice will publish its ruling on the government’s “reasonableness law” this evening and that it will strike down the controversial legislation, which is an amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary.
This would be the first time the court strikes down any aspect of one of Israel’s Basic Laws, which have quasi-constitutional status.
Lawmakers from the Shas coalition party are reportedly seeking to advance a bill that would temporarily extend the time in which High Court justices can publish rulings on petitions, allowing the bench to postpone a decision that is widely expected to strike down a piece of the government’s judicial overhaul.
In an unprecedented leak, a draft ruling published last week previewed the court’s intention to strike down, by an 8-7 vote, a law limiting the court’s ability to reverse government and ministerial decisions based on the doctrine of reasonableness.
“The judiciary views very severely the leak of parts of draft rulings that have not been completed,” acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman said of the leak. “The attempt to influence pending proceedings and to harm public trust in the judiciary and its dedicated judges and employees will not succeed.” The final ruling is expected to arrive midway through January.
The report drew immediate, heated reactions, with coalition members chastising the expected decision and casting it as undermining the national unity being displayed during the ongoing war against Hamas. The group that petitioned for the law to be nullified claimed the leak was an attempt to intimidate the justices and push them to change their ruling and not void the legislation.
The leaked draft revealed an apparent 8-7 split among the 15-justice panel, indicating eight justices in favor of annulling the law and seven against
The justices who reportedly support the nullification are: former president Esther Hayut, current care-taker president Uzi Vogelman, Isaac Amit, Anat Baron, Ofer Grosskopf, Chaled Kabub, Daphne Barak-Erez and Ruth Ronnen.
The opponents are reported to be Noam Sohlberg, Yechiel Meir Kasher, Yosef Elron, Alex Stein, Yael Willner, David Mintz and Gila Canfy Steinitz.
Each judge will now read the opinions of the other justices before a final decision is reached. There is a chance, though slim, that the result will be different if a justice changes his or her mind after reading the other verdicts, Channel 12 reported.
Although the High Court has heard petitions against Basic Laws before, it has never heard a case against a law specifically designed to limit the High Court’s own powers, and the powers of the judiciary more broadly, nor has it done so amid such internal political turmoil over the balance of power between the branches of government.
Because of the extremely sensitive nature of the case and the highly explosive impact the court’s ruling may have, the entire bench of 15 High Court justices will hear the petitions, a judicial panel unprecedented in size in Israel’s history.
Israel‘s Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana warned Supreme Court justices on Wednesday that the parliament „will not acquiesce to its trampling,“ less than a week before the court is set to hear petitions against a key law in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s judicial coup.
“Israel is democratic, and in a democracy, the sovereign is the people. In a democratic state, the justice system respects the sovereign, the people and its elected officials, and this respect is mutual. There is no debate, and there cannot be one, over the question of whether the Knesset has authorized the court to nullify Basic Laws,” he says, arguing that the court possesses no such power.
„We have all already expressed our opinion, I‘ve talked with Israel’s prime minister and also with Israel’s president. I‘ve clearly stated that I think a majority cannot decide things for a minority, and that in a proper democracy, a minority should always be able to live without fear.“
He added, „That‘s how we decided to do it in the German constitution, in many ways following the terrible experience we had. There‘s a constitution that can only be changed with a two-thirds majority. When we elect judges, we do it with a large majority – not just a regular majority.“
Supreme Court President Esther Hayut observed that the “fingerprints” of a plan designed to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from being ordered to recuse himself were “very clear,” while her fellow panel member Justice Uzi Vogelman said simply that “the fact is the law is personal.”
The court’s three most senior justices presided over Thursday’s five-hour hearing, in a case in which, for the first time ever, the attorney general has joined petitioners in asking for a Basic Law to be canceled.
Suiting the unprecedented times, all 15 justices of the Supreme Court will sit in September to decide the fate of the law. All eyes will be on the court in Jerusalem, not least those of Israel’s extraordinary pro-democracy protest movement, which has vowed to protect the rule of law, while the prime minister serially refuses to state for the record that he will commit to the court’s ruling.
Beyond Israel’s borders, the world is watching this momentous battle against illiberalism and autocracy, whether as inspiration or as a portent for their own societies.
Netanyahu, who has refused to answer questions from the Israeli media has been giving interviews to American Networks. „I think we have to follow two rules. One is that Israeli governments abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court and the at the same time the Supreme Court respects the basic laws which are the closes thing we have to a constitution. I think we should keep both principles.“
Der Staat Israel hat keine Verfassung und fußt dagegen auf einer Sammlung von Grundgesetzen.
Bei der im Parlament beschlossenen Abschaffung des sogenannten Angemessenheitsstandards handelt es sich um eine Änderung eines dieser Grundgesetze. In Israels Geschichte wurde bisher noch nie ein vergleichbares Gesetz vom Obersten Gericht einkassiert. Sollte dies nun geschehen und die Regierung die Entscheidung nicht akzeptieren, droht dem Land eine Staatskrise.
After the abolishment of the reasonableness clause last week, the High Court did not issue an interim injunction to freeze the amendment to the law. According to Justice David Mintz’s decision, the hearing will take place after the court’s recess, before the departure of Justices Hayut and Anat Baron, who are considered liberal judges, in October.
It was also decided that the government and the Knesset will submit their responses to the petitions up to ten days before the hearing.
„We had to put Israeli democracy back on an equal footing with other democracies. The essence of democracy is the balance between the will of the majority and the rights of the minority. This balance has been violated over the last 20 years, because we have the most activist court on the planet,“ Netanyahu declared.
He also referred to the „internal debate going on right now in the United States about the powers of the Supreme Court, about whether it‘s abusing its powers, whether they should be curtailed.“
(Fri July 28)
“What you’re talking about is a situation, or potential situation, where in American terms, the United States’ Supreme Court would take a constitutional amendment and say that it’s unconstitutional, Netanyahu said. “That’s the kind of the kind of spiral that you’re talking about, and I hope we don’t get to that.”
The so-called “reasonableness” law is an amendment to one of Israel’s Basic Laws, which exist in place of a formal constitution.
(28.06.2023)
Thanks to a law that Israel inherited from the British Mandate dictatorship, the interior minister holds the power to disband a municipality. The minister is barred from using it in the year preceding local elections. But once those elections are over later this year, this government can depose as many mayors and local and regional council heads as it wants. It can eliminate city council members and replace them with government loyalists.
The interior minister can easily find a pretext for “faulty performance” in any locale. And what will the deposed mayors do then? The Supreme Court will be unable to deem the decision to fire them “unreasonable,” because this standard will no longer be available.
(today)
The new law certainly does damage to Israel’s democracy — for example, it opens the door to corruption — but whether the court will determine it denies the democratic nature of the state is very much an open question.
A more plausible scenario is that the Supreme Court will wait it out to see if other components of the proposed overhaul will pass, especially those dealing with judicial appointments, weakening the independence of legal counsels within government ministries, and limits on judicial review of legislation.
In 2021, the court outlined very narrow circumstances under which a Basic Law can be annulled. A number of petitions were filed challenging the constitutionality of the Nation State Law. While the court did not strike down the law, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut said that “there is one restriction, exceedingly narrow, which is incumbent on the Knesset in its function as the constituent authority, that it is unable to revoke Israel’s essence as a Jewish and democratic state through a Basic Law.”
The court could strike down a Basic Law if it endangers democratic principles such as those that deal “a mortal blow to free and fair elections, core human rights, the separation of powers, the rule of law, and an independent judiciary,” Hayut said.
The bill, she pointed out, was submitted to the Knesset just days after the petitions were filed against Netanyahu, and observed that just hours after the legislation was passed into law the prime minister announced he was directly involving himself in the judicial overhaul agenda.
As such, it was designed specifically to allow Netanyahu to evade the conflict of interests agreement he signed back in 2020 which was authorized by the High Court, in order to allow him to continue serving as prime minister.
Such a nightmarish spectacle had never been seen in Israel: The president, the prime minister, the chairman of the opposition and the head of the country‘s largest labor federation were trading proposals on the issue of judicial review as if they were cryptocurrency.
Until now, the High Court has never invalidated any Basic Law. Only “regular laws” that violate Basic Laws have been disqualified. Therefore, striking down the legislation passed Monday would be an unprecedented move.
Despite 29 weeks of unprecedented protests, all 64 coalition members back ‘reasonableness’ bill in final vote after 30 hours of plenum discussion; entire opposition walks out
Advanced on a rushed timeline that only dedicated nine committee sessions to preparing the core text for a substantive amendment to one of Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws, the bill is expected to clear extensive filibusters to become law by Monday or Tuesday, in line with the coalition’s goal to show movement on its judicial overhaul program before the Knesset breaks forits summer recess on July 30
The legislation was approved by the Knesset‘s Constitution Committee last week. According to the wording of the proposal, „those who have judicial authority according to law, including the Supreme Court when sitting as a high court of justice, will not discuss or issue an order against the government, the prime minister, a minister or another elected official regarding the reasonableness of their decision.“
The full Knesset will begin voting Monday afternoon on the amendment to the Basic Law on the Judiciary. The session will begin at 4 P.M. with debate, followed by a vote on a motion of no-confidence in the government submitted by the opposition. Lawmakers will then take up the reasonableness bill.
The bill to be voted on follows the wording it contained before lawmakers held deliberations on it. During the five meetings of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on the bill, not a single change was introduced.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his justice minister and the head of the Knesset committee sponsoring the bill to “soften” the language so as not to shield local city halls from petitions for judicial review, the bill’s language has not so far been changed.
MK Simcha Rothman, who heads the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, said that the current bill will not apply to mayors, but declined to remove the “other elected officials” clause, smoothing the way to easily expand the bill’s scope.
Bill planned for Knesset’s winter session is reportedly aimed at providing safety net in case High Court strikes down proposed law exempting Haredi youth from army service
(11. August 2018)
Sehr zum Leidwesen der E.U.-Reichsbürger und ihrer entsprechenden Pendants kann in der Berliner Republik die Verfassung nur durch Zwei-Drittel-Mehrheit in zwei Parlamentskammern (Bundestag und Bundesrat) geändert und nur durch eine Volksabstimmung gestürzt werden.
Im Gegensatz dazu werden Israels “Grundgesetze” lediglich in einer einzigen Parlamentskammer (der Knesset) mit absoluter Mehrheit beschlossen, wie alle anderen Gesetze. Inwieweit sich der Status der “Grundgesetze”, die irgendwann einmal eine Verfassung bilden sollen, überhaupt von allen anderen Gesetzen unterscheidet, ist in Israel bis heute umstritten.
Dieser faule Kompromiss entstand, da nach der Unabhängigkeitserklärung Israels in 1948 keine verfassungsgebende Versammlung gewählt wurde und auch das Parlament diesbezüglich keine Entscheidung traf.
Fearing that their proposals to shift powers away from the courts and into politicians’ hands could be reversed by a future Knesset they don’t control, the coalition chiefs want to pass their judicial shakeup plans as amendments to existing Basic Laws, then approve a new one delineating the status of the Basic Laws and under what conditions they can be altered, the report said.
When the negotiation‘s deadline is reached, the host of laws which seek to alter the nature of Basic Laws and allow the government to easily pass semi-constitutional laws will be passed as a single package of legislation, sources with knowledge of the emerging deal said.
The judicial overhaul will destroy democracy, the Knesset isn’t authorized to enact such laws, and their important clauses will be struck down by the High Court: Retired justices, former attorneys general and law professors weigh