Harsh setback for Benjamin Netanyahu: the Supreme Court blocks a key point of judicial reform

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled Monday a hard setback Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invalidated a key provision of the controversial judicial reform promoted by his government, at the height of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The project, announced in January 2023 after Netanyahu returned to power with a far-right coalition, triggered one of the largest protest movements in Israeli history.

But the reform was relegated to the background after the war against Hamas began on October 7.

The conflict erupted after an attack by Islamic commandos in southern Israel that left nearly 1,140 dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official Israeli data.

In response, the Jewish state launched a devastating offensive in Gaza, which has so far caused 21,978 deathsmostly women, adolescents and children, according to Hamas, which governs the Strip.

The Supreme Court’s decision has once again brought the issue to the forefront. The invalidated provision was intended to deprive the judiciary of the right to decide on the “reasonableness” of decisions of the government or of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

Eight of the court’s 15 judges voted in favor of invalidating the rule, Israel’s Justice Ministry said in a statement.

Government criticism of the Court

Following the Court’s decision, Justice Minister Yariv Levin accused the court of “arrogating all powers to itself.”

“The judges take into their hands all the powers, which in a democratic system are distributed in a balanced way between the three powers” of the state, writes Levin, architect of the controversial judicial reform, on Telegram.

Levin, number two in Netanyahu’s nationalist government, criticized the fact that the decision was taken “in the midst of war (in the Gaza Strip), which goes against the unity necessary these days for the success of our fighters on the front “.

Netanyahu’s party, Likud, also criticized the timing of this decision.

It is “regrettable that the Supreme Court has decided to publish its verdict on a social debate in Israel while soldiers from the right and left are fighting and risking their lives” in Gaza, he said.

Opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid welcomed the decision and found the Court had “faithfully fulfilled its role in protecting the citizens of Israel.”

The sentence “puts an end to a difficult year, full of conflicts that have torn us apart from within and caused the worst catastrophe in our history,” Lapid wrote on the social network X, referring to the October 7 attack.

The Court also decided that it has the authority to invalidate a fundamental law “in rare and exceptional cases where Parliament exceeds its authority”.

The Basic Laws play the role of the Constitution in Israel.

The judicial reform sparked a large protest movement with tens of thousands of people demonstrating almost every Saturday in numerous cities across the country, including Tel Aviv.

According to the government coalition – which brings together right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties – the law seeks to correct an alleged imbalance by strengthening the power of deputies over that of magistrates.

The coalition government is the most right-wing in Israel’s history.

Detractors of the reform instead accuse Netanyahu, on trial for corruption, of wanting to use the reform to soften a possible sentence against him, which the politician denies.

Israel does not have a Constitution, nor the equivalent of an upper house of Parliament, and the doctrine of “reasonableness” has been used precisely so that judges can determine whether a government exceeds its prerogatives.

Source: AFP