I'm not Israeli, don't know the full context, but the proposed reform seems like common sense? Why should unelected judges be able to overrule government decisions merely because they feel they are "unreasonable", with no reference to an overriding law? Such a procedure cannot be compatible with democracy. I don't often find myself in agreement with Netanyahu, but for once I think he has the right of it.
> The justices, led by departing Chief Justice Esther Hayut, argued that the standard of reasonableness was a key tool for judges to protect against arbitrary government overreach, particularly in Israel, which lacks a formal constitution.
Without the underlying framework of protections to protect democracy against populism or malignant leadership the democracy would devolve. There needs to be protections in so that the government does not erode fundamental structures.
The language that Netanyahu uses in response to this ruling, in my opinion, is quite telling.
Judges, especially at a high level, don’t just shoot from the hip. They cite the applicable laws, and pose the question: given the executive argues that what they did was permissible under these laws. Is that a reasonable interpretation or are they stretching beyond the limits of their power?
Relative to every other nation, including other democracies, the Supreme Court of Israel does indeed have exceptionally strong powers to strike down government laws and actions, powers that it adopted itself at the behest of some very strong-minded judges several decades ago.
OTOH, AFAIU, the current reform efforts are strategically designed to severely cripple the court in a way that threatens its ability to provide any meaningful check against the government, calling into question whether Israel could even be notionally considered a liberal democracy. Israel was established as a religious state with very little in the way of meaningful checks & balances (de jure or normative) intended to protect minorities (or the majority from itself). The powers the court adopted came at a time when the excesses and corruption of the government spawned a liberal reform effort that for better or worse came to fruition largely through judicial activism and not electorally-based constitutional reform.
Many moderate jurists, at least from what I've read, are of the opinion that a restraining of the court's powers is probably necessary, at least to the extent the goal is achieving a balance of powers closer to those in other liberal democracies. But that probably can't happen through the regular parliamentary process because the current powers are a response to excesses of parliament, and there's no reason to believe the parliamentary process can be trusted any more than it could 30+ years ago. Quite the contrary, the evidence for strong checks against parliament has only become more clear. (Again, presuming the goal is maintaining a liberal democracy, modulo what's minimally required to maintain Israel as a religious state.)
Unfortunately, even when they're inclined to do it, courts find it difficult to relinquish powers assumed by themselves as the very act of doing so threatens their legitimacy and viability as a strong check against other organs of government. This is why liberal democracy is often best served by conservative courts, because when a conservative court does adopt powers or uses its existing powers to obstruct highly popular government actions, it comes across as far more legitimate. Maintaining that legitimacy across several iterations of this process requires very measured and restrained power grabs. The earlier reform effort probably did a disservice to Israeli democracy by grabbing too much power.
I suspect proper, stable reform would need to come neither from parliament nor the courts. But I'm not familiar enough with Israeli politics to know what the alternatives might be. Part of the dilemma is that the Israeli political system seems to lack such alternatives, both in law and normatively.
"presuming the goal is maintaining a liberal democracy, modulo what's minimally required to maintain Israel as a religious state" - squaring that circle is going to be tough in the long run.
Every morally corrupt politician soon or later attempts to curb the judicial system powers before they get him red handed; it has been already either attempted or done by Putin, Lukashenko, Orban, Erdogan, Al Sisi, Modi, and in some cases attempted but backfired (Bolsonaro). Happens in every part of the world, and I voluntarily omitted some of them to not incite flames. The worst of the worst invariably get to a point in which they're forced to neuter their own judicial system in order to continue their path towards what in some cases can be euphemistically called a "democratorship", that is, a dictatorship disguised as democracy. Netanyahu makes no difference here; he's just like many others who would never let a serious crisis go to waste and for sure he is now the #1 to benefit politically from Oct 7 Hamas attacks.
Oh and since every critics to Israel must be immediately painted as antisemite, I'll close this with Hamas is a bunch of terrorist bastards who must cease to exist asap. Carpet bombing civilians is not the way, though.
I don't like Netanyahu either (a cursory glance at my comment history wil bear that out), but that doesn't mean that judges can't abuse their power too. In this case, the supreme court appears to believe they have the right to overrule any government decision they feel is "unreasonable", which seems like an extremely vague standard for unelected officials to apply to the people's elected representatives.
You don't limit powers of doctors to prescribe medicines just because you found an incompetent or corrupt one; you fire that one.
Governments in truly free countries must not act above their own justice, just like judges can't when picked one by one; if a corrupt judge or a corrupt politician are caught they must be fired and prosecuted the same way. Corrupt politicians work against that, and they often pass laws that limit the judicial power as a whole, which would make no difference when dealing with a corrupt judge, but would help them to avoid prosecution.
Invariably, all attempts at justifying those attempts to limit judges powers are from people who either fell for propaganda or is spreading it on purpose.
Netanyahu desperately wants to look strong, but instead is working against his own cause through poorly thought remarks and surrounding himself with people that suffer from the same problem. He could be doing better if he simply kept silence more often.
His government does not hesitate to appear on TV interviews, but their poor preparation results in embarassing contradictions that sometimes are met with laughter. They consistently show an arrogant attitude that seems almost like a comedic sketch. An elementary school debate team would prevail over them.
He is also a disaster for his belief system, cherrypicking some mitzvot taken out of context (like what was said about the Amalekites), and disregarding others.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 58.9 ms ] threadSo this probably isn't over.
To me, this doesn't make Israel look bad, it just makes the current prime minister and the "ruling party" look bad.
Without the underlying framework of protections to protect democracy against populism or malignant leadership the democracy would devolve. There needs to be protections in so that the government does not erode fundamental structures.
The language that Netanyahu uses in response to this ruling, in my opinion, is quite telling.
Judges, especially at a high level, don’t just shoot from the hip. They cite the applicable laws, and pose the question: given the executive argues that what they did was permissible under these laws. Is that a reasonable interpretation or are they stretching beyond the limits of their power?
OTOH, AFAIU, the current reform efforts are strategically designed to severely cripple the court in a way that threatens its ability to provide any meaningful check against the government, calling into question whether Israel could even be notionally considered a liberal democracy. Israel was established as a religious state with very little in the way of meaningful checks & balances (de jure or normative) intended to protect minorities (or the majority from itself). The powers the court adopted came at a time when the excesses and corruption of the government spawned a liberal reform effort that for better or worse came to fruition largely through judicial activism and not electorally-based constitutional reform.
Many moderate jurists, at least from what I've read, are of the opinion that a restraining of the court's powers is probably necessary, at least to the extent the goal is achieving a balance of powers closer to those in other liberal democracies. But that probably can't happen through the regular parliamentary process because the current powers are a response to excesses of parliament, and there's no reason to believe the parliamentary process can be trusted any more than it could 30+ years ago. Quite the contrary, the evidence for strong checks against parliament has only become more clear. (Again, presuming the goal is maintaining a liberal democracy, modulo what's minimally required to maintain Israel as a religious state.)
Unfortunately, even when they're inclined to do it, courts find it difficult to relinquish powers assumed by themselves as the very act of doing so threatens their legitimacy and viability as a strong check against other organs of government. This is why liberal democracy is often best served by conservative courts, because when a conservative court does adopt powers or uses its existing powers to obstruct highly popular government actions, it comes across as far more legitimate. Maintaining that legitimacy across several iterations of this process requires very measured and restrained power grabs. The earlier reform effort probably did a disservice to Israeli democracy by grabbing too much power.
I suspect proper, stable reform would need to come neither from parliament nor the courts. But I'm not familiar enough with Israeli politics to know what the alternatives might be. Part of the dilemma is that the Israeli political system seems to lack such alternatives, both in law and normatively.
"presuming the goal is maintaining a liberal democracy, modulo what's minimally required to maintain Israel as a religious state" - squaring that circle is going to be tough in the long run.
Oh and since every critics to Israel must be immediately painted as antisemite, I'll close this with Hamas is a bunch of terrorist bastards who must cease to exist asap. Carpet bombing civilians is not the way, though.
What do morally corrupt judges do?
Governments in truly free countries must not act above their own justice, just like judges can't when picked one by one; if a corrupt judge or a corrupt politician are caught they must be fired and prosecuted the same way. Corrupt politicians work against that, and they often pass laws that limit the judicial power as a whole, which would make no difference when dealing with a corrupt judge, but would help them to avoid prosecution.
Invariably, all attempts at justifying those attempts to limit judges powers are from people who either fell for propaganda or is spreading it on purpose.
His government does not hesitate to appear on TV interviews, but their poor preparation results in embarassing contradictions that sometimes are met with laughter. They consistently show an arrogant attitude that seems almost like a comedic sketch. An elementary school debate team would prevail over them.
He is also a disaster for his belief system, cherrypicking some mitzvot taken out of context (like what was said about the Amalekites), and disregarding others.