Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s justice minister has unveiled a plan to overhaul the country’s judicial system and weaken the country’s Supreme Court.

Critics have accused the government of declaring war against the judiciary, saying the plan announced on Wednesday will upend Israel’s system of checks and balances and undermine democratic institutions by giving absolute power to the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history.

Justice minister Yariv Levin, a confidant of Netanyahu and longtime critic of the Supreme Court, presented his plan a day before the justices are to debate a controversial new law on Thursday that allows a politician convicted of tax offences to serve as a Cabinet minister.

“The time has come to act,” Levin said of his plan to overhaul the court.

His proposals call for a series of sweeping changes aimed at curbing the powers of Israel’s high court, including by allowing legislators to pass laws the court has struck down and effectively deemed unconstitutional.

Levin laid out a law that would empower the country’s 120-seat parliament, or Knesset, to override Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority of 61 votes. He also proposed that politicians play a greater role in the appointment of Supreme Court judges and that ministers appoint their own legal advisers, instead of using independent professionals.

Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist allies have also said they hope to scrap Supreme Court rulings outlawing Israeli outposts on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. They would also seek to allow for the protracted detention of African asylum-seekers and make official the exclusion of the ultra-Orthodox from the country’s mandatory military service.

Levin argued that the public’s faith in the judicial system has plummeted to a historic low and said he plans to restore power to elected officials that now lies in the hands of what he and his supporters consider overly interventionist judges.

“These reforms will strengthen the judicial system and restore public faith in it,” Levin said in a televised statement.

“People we did not vote for decide for us,” he said, referring to the court.

BDST: 1036 HRS, JAN 05, 2023
MSK