- THE TIMES OF ISRAEL - STAFF - MAR 21, 2023 -
Rothman gives opposition less than 12 hours to file objections with his committee before legislation readied for second and third (final) readings in the Knesset plenum
Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the chief architect of the government’s judicial overhaul push, warned the High Court of Justice on Monday against intervening to strike down a new coalition proposal that will cement its control over the selection of judges, including High Court justices.
The intervention of the court, should it step in to strike down the legislation once it passes, “would be completely unjustified. In my opinion, it would mark the crossing of every red line. We certainly won’t accept it,” warned Levin.
Speaking with the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, Levin asserted that changes to the legislation — introduced late Sunday night by MK Simcha Rothman and slightly updated on Monday morning — have addressed critics’ concerns that the proposal will lead to a constitutional crisis, and should allay their fears that the coalition’s true aim is to give itself absolute power to determine the makeup of the courts.
But opposition leaders Monday said the bill — which passed its first Knesset reading last month in a slightly different format — marked the end of judicial independence and the beginning of the end of Israeli democracy. And a deputy attorney general warned that the revised proposal failed to address the concern that the coalition’s legislation will “politicize the justice system and severely harm its independence and public trust in it.”
The bill is part of a wider package of coalition legislation that would also largely neuter the High Court’s ability to strike down legislation in the future, and enable the Knesset to re-legislate laws the court does manage to annul with a bare majority of just 61 MKs.