The Knesset (Israeli Parliament) today definitively approved the law that annuls the doctrine of reasonableness, the first law of the legislative package of the controversial judicial reform promoted by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The law went ahead with 64 votes in favor – all the deputies from the government coalition parties – and zero against, since the 56 deputies from the opposition block were absent from the vote.
The doctrine of reasonableness, now annulled, allowed the Supreme Court to review and revoke government decisions or appointments and is seen by the protest movement as a fundamental democratic guarantee against abuses of power.
“We have taken the first step in the important historical process of correcting the legal system and restoring the powers that were taken away from the government and the Knesset for many years,” Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the architect of judicial reform, said after the bill was passed.
Before the vote, Levin pointed out that this law “will restore the balance between government authorities and respect for the will of the voters.”
The law was voted on in a plenary session that began on Sunday, after 30 hours of heated debates between the government and the opposition, while thousands of protesters camped out in front of the Knesset since Saturday night have been protesting against the reform, seen as a threat to democracy because it undermines the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary.
Given the strong division generated, in the last 48 hours there have been several attempts at negotiations, promoted by President Isaac Herzog, for the government and the opposition to reach a consensus agreement, but they have failed again.
“Our main condition was to protect Israeli democracy, but with this government it is impossible to reach agreements that preserve Israeli democracy,” opposition leader Yair Lapid declared shortly before the vote, visibly angry.
“They want to destroy the State, destroy democracy, destroy Israel’s security, the unity of the Israeli people and our international relations,” lamented Lapid, who accused the government of being the “most irresponsible in history.”
Hours before the vote, Herzog appealed again to the “understanding” and “responsibility” of the parties to reach a consensus in the face of what he described as a “national emergency” in the face of the deep social fracture that the reform has caused, which has unleashed the largest protests in the history of Israel.
Herzog met separately with Netanyahu and opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz yesterday to resume negotiations that began in April but broke down in June when the government decided to go ahead unilaterally with reform.
This revitalized the protest movement, which has not ceased for seven months, with massive demonstrations in recent weeks -this Saturday more than 550,000 people took to the streets throughout the country-, strong social pressure on the unions to call a general strike and more than 10,000 reservists refusing to volunteer for service.
Today’s day was also marked by the protests in front of the Knesset, which so far have left 19 detainees and five slightly injured in altercations with the police, who used the mounted police and water cannons to disperse the protesters who were blocking the access to the airport.
