Israel experienced a day of tension and concern yesterday after the approval, on Monday in Parliament, of the key law of the judicial reform of the Beniamín Netanyahu government, which triggered massive protests and aggravates the divisions that have existed in the country for months . The law limits the power of intervention of the Supreme Court in government decisions.
The approval – by 64 parliamentarians from the government coalition, compared to 56 from the opposition who boycotted the vote – was followed by a wave of spontaneous protests throughout the country, which lasted until early Tuesday morning.
The Israelis woke up yesterday with the images of the police repression against the demonstrators, determined to keep one of the main arteries of Tel Aviv blocked, and who were finally evicted by force and using water cannons. The Israeli press reacted not only with harsh editorials against the government but also with the printing of black front pages by five of the country’s leading newspapers.
“A black day for Israeli democracy”, read a message written in white letters on the five covers, the product of a campaign promoted and financed by the protest movement of companies in the high-tech sector against judicial reform, which seeks grant more power to the Executive to the detriment of justice, whose independence would be profoundly undermined.
Another of the organizing groups of the protests, Free Israel, wrote on its Twitter account that it is a difficult day for the State of Israel, which suffered a “terrible wound to the heart” by a “dictatorial” government, although he urged “renew and strengthen the resistance” against the reform.
The tension also extended to the country’s hospitals, many of which provided a restricted service or were limited to emergency treatment, in the framework of a day of strike by the Israel Doctors Association.
But the focus of attention was not only the hospitals or the newspapers, but the Supreme Court, after the appeal by civil society groups to overthrow the law approved on Monday by the Knesset or Parliament. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel argued that it is “an unconstitutional law because it fundamentally changes the basic structure of Israeli parliamentary democracy and the nature of the regime.” This NGO also denounced that, in practice, the law “abolishes the judiciary and seriously damages the delicate fabric of the separation of powers and the system of counterweights in the State of Israel” and “gives unlimited power to the Executive”.
Consulted by Efe, the Israeli political analyst Amir Oren explained that there are no precedents for the intervention of the Supreme Court in cases like this, but he did not rule out that the court intercede, triggering “a confrontation between two powers.” “Netanyahu is clearly trying to use his political power to get out of his legal problems,” added Oren, referring to the corruption trials facing the president, accused of fraud, bribery and breach of trust.
Precisely the trials against the prime minister were the trigger for a recommendation yesterday by the State Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, to revoke a law approved in March of this year that shields Netanyahu from the possibility of being challenged or declared unfit to perform the functions of his position.
That law was seen at the time as a reaction to fears that the Supreme Court could force the president to resign due to a conflict of interest, as he is the leader of a government coalition that promotes drastic judicial reform while facing various charges of corruption. Baharav-Miaria pointed out yesterday that it was “an improper use of the authority of the Knesset to improve the personal situation of the prime minister and allow him to operate in defiance of the court’s decision.”
