Protesters were slated to demonstrate Saturday evening in Tel Aviv and across Israel for a 34th consecutive week against the government’s plans for overhauling the judicial system.
With the legislative push to weaken the judiciary on hold amid the Knesset’s summer recess, anti-government demonstrators have increasingly highlighted other grievances during recent protests, including recent incidents of discrimination against women and the sway religious parties hold on the ruling coalition.
Continuing to branch out, protesters this week will also highlight surging violent crime in Arab communities, as the government faces increased criticism over its response to record homicide numbers.
The main protest at Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street will include a keynote Arab speaker, Tira Mayor Mamoun Abd al-Hay. The mayor’s address will come days after Tira municipal director Abdel Rahman Kashua was shot dead in the central city.
Kashua’s killing was followed a day later by a quadruple homicide in the northern town of Abu Snan, one of the deadliest single acts of criminal violence this year.
Thursday saw thousands take part in a women’s rights march in the predominantly Haredi city of Bnei Brak, organized following multiple recent acts of discrimination against women in public spaces, as well as opposition to ostensible religious coercion by elements in the Haredi-backed government.
Several speakers at the rally referred to the Haredi public and its leaders as willing partners in a push to quash civil liberties and coerce millions of secular and non-Jewish Israelis to abide by Orthodox Jewish principles.
Wednesday saw Justice Minister Yariv Levin meet with Likud MK Yuli Edelstein on Wednesday as part of an apparent effort to shore up support to advance additional bills in the government’s judicial overhaul program.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with Justice Minister Yariv Levin as the Knesset deliberates a bill to cancel the judiciary’s review powers over the ‘reasonableness’ of government decisions, in Jerusalem on July 10, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Edelstein was one of several lawmakers in the ruling party who signaled they may not back further legislation in the absence of broad support, after the coalition last month passed the first law in the planned shakeup of the judiciary.
In March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefly fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant following the latter’s calls to freeze legislation on the judicial overhaul. In turn, widespread protests erupted, causing the government to freeze legislation and hold negotiations with the opposition at the President’s Residence.
The talks ended in June without a compromise, leading to the passage of the first overhaul bill – the “reasonableness” law, which curtails judicial review – 64-0, with the opposition boycotting the vote.
The opposition walked away from the talks, saying the coalition had acted in bad faith on a related issue: its efforts to avoid staffing and convening the committee that elects new judges, allegedly in a bid to wait until the composition of the panel could be changed in order to give the government more influence.
The meeting between Edelstein and Levin came as President Isaac Herzog issued a fresh compromise proposal for judicial reform. Wednesday’s proposal addresses the issue of judicial appointments, perhaps the most contentious in the entire overhaul package.
Herzog suggested that one of the judges on the Judicial Selection Committee be selected by the justice minister, thus giving the coalition more influence over the appointment of judges. The proposal would allow the appointed judge to be retired and wouldn’t require that the judge be a Supreme Court justice. The government has sought a majority on the panel, which would essentially give it control of all judicial appointments.
Herzog’s new proposal also calls for continuing legislation on the “reasonableness” law in order to further “soften” the law’s effects, and that all further legislation on the legal system be passed by broad consensus.
Herzog’s previous proposal for compromise said that judicial review could be exercised on Knesset legislation only if the decision was made by a majority of seven out of 11 justices. Regarding government legal advisers, the previous proposal said that while a legal adviser’s opinion would be binding, a minister could seek out private representation in cases of disagreement.
According to a Channel 12 report, it is unclear at this point whether there are new proposals regarding judicial review and the authority of government legal advisers.
Last month, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demanded an 18-month freeze on legislation aimed at overhauling the judiciary as a condition for his Yesh Atid party to return to negotiations with the coalition on judicial reforms. Netanyahu’s Likud rejected the request.
