Israel’s Supreme Court dealt a severe blow to the prime minister on Monday Benjamin Netanyahu to the override a key provision of the controversial judicial reform promoted by his government, in the middle of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The project, announced in January 2023 after Netanyahu returned to power, triggered one of the movements of protests most important in the history of Israel. But the reform was relegated to the background after the start of the war against Hamas on October 7.
The conflict broke out after Islamist commando attack in southern Israel, which left nearly 1,140 dead, most of them civilians, according to a count by the AFP based on the latest official Israeli figures.
In response, the Jewish state launched a devastating offensive in Gaza, which has so far left 21,978 dead, mostly women, adolescents and children, according to Hamas, which governs the Strip.
The Supreme Court’s decision once again brought the issue to the forefront. The invalidated measure provided for depriving the judiciary of the right to decide on the “reasonableness” of government decisions or the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.
Eight of the court’s 15 judges voted in favor of invalidating the ruleThe Israeli Ministry of Justice said in a statement.
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Following the Court’s decision, the Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin accused the court of “arrogating all powers to itself.”
“Judges take all powers into their handswhich in a democratic system are distributed in a balanced manner between the three powers” of the State, wrote Levin, architect of the controversial judicial reform, on Telegram.
Levin, number two in Netanyahu’s nationalist government, criticized that the decision was made “in the middle of the war [en la Franja de Gaza]which goes against the unity necessary these days for the success of our fighters on the front.”
Netanyahu’s party, Likud, also criticized the timing of this decision.
It is “regrettable that the Supreme Court has decided to publish its verdict on a social debate in Israel while soldiers from the right and left fight and risk their lives” in Gaza, he said.
The head of the opposition and former prime minister, Yair Lapid, celebrated the decision and judged that the Court had “faithfully fulfilled its function of protecting the citizens of Israel.”
The ruling “puts an end to a difficult year of conflicts that tore us apart from the inside and caused the worst catastrophe in our history,” Lapid wrote on the social network X, referring to the October 7 attack.
The court further decided that it had the authority to invalidate a fundamental law “in the rare and exceptional cases in which Parliament exceeds its authority.”
The fundamental laws fulfill the role of the Constitution in Israel.
The judicial reform unleashed a wide protest movement with tens of thousands of people demonstrating almost every Saturday in numerous cities in the country, including Tel Aviv.
According to the coalition government – which brings together right-wing, extreme right-wing parties and ultra-Orthodox formations – the law seeks to correct an alleged imbalance by reinforcing the power of deputies over that of magistrates.
The coalition government is the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
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The detractors of the reform, on the other hand, accuse Netanyahutried for corruption, of wanting to use the reform to soften a possible sentence against him, which the politician denies.
Israel has no Constitution, nor the equivalent of an upper house of Parliamentand the doctrine of “reasonableness” has been used precisely so that judges can determine whether a government exceeds its prerogatives.