Knesset debates override clause, as president warns national situation ‘very serious’

The Knesset opened debate on Monday night to advance a key bill to imbue laws with preemptive immunity against judicial review, placing the bulk of the coalition’s core judicial reforms within striking distance from being finalized into law, ahead of the justice minister’s end-of-month deadline.

Expected to easily pass its first reading despite a planned opposition filibuster, the bill grants immunity to laws that explicitly state that they are valid even if they come into conflict with one of Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Law. Dubbed an override clause because it bars court review, the mechanism will take effect if 61 of the Knesset’s 120 MKs support the bill through three readings.

Once inserted into any specific bill, the clause would be valid during the term of the Knesset that passes it and for one year into the next Knesset, which can also decide to extend the clause’s protections indefinitely.

The bill also constrains the High Court of Justice’s ability to exercise oversight on laws not covered by the new immunity clause. In addition to raising the bar to require 12 of the court’s 15 judges to strike down a law, the bill limits court review to bills that have clear procedural violations, versus substantive ones.

Once passed, the override bill joins a slew of other radical reforms poised for swift finalization, chief among them a bid to retool judicial appointments such that the coalition will have absolute control over selections. After clearing another committee vote, itself controlled by the coalition, both bills will be ready for their second and third, final, readings, to be conducted back-to-back. The coalition has said it seeks to enact the laws by the time the Knesset breaks for Passover, in just over two weeks.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin and the head of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee MK Simcha Rothman are the drivers behind the government’s push to increase political power at the expense of the judiciary. They say their reforms will “correct” the balance of power between elected officials and an activist judiciary. Critics and growing mass protest movements decry the move as stripping judicial independence and eroding democracy, leaving almost all power in the hands of the elected political majority.

The full range of Levin and Rothman’s measures currently in play also include a move to block any High Court intervention in Basic Laws at all, moving the Police Internal Investigative Division directly under the justice minister’s control, stripping the authority of government and ministry legal advisers, axing the High Court’s power to review ministerial appointments, and shielding the prime minister from forced removal from office.

The coalition is also currently working through a bill that would allow some private donations to politicians, despite warnings that it could open a door to corruption.

On Monday, Likud MK David Amsalem — who has been promised to eventually become a second minister within the Justice Ministry — proposed bills to block the prosecution of a serving premier and to abolish the criminal charge of fraud and breach of trust, a charge that serves as a central tenet of Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, although many legal scholars decry it as vague.

Amsalem introduced similar bills in the past Knesset, when Likud was an opposition party.

Competing with the coalition in their fervor, protests have ripped across Israel in the 10 weeks since Levin announced what he called the “first phase” of the coalition’s sweeping reforms, with hundreds of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets on Saturdays to demonstrate under the banner of protecting Israeli democracy.

The coalition has brushed off ever-multiplying warnings by economists, jurists, diplomats and top former security officials of the potential for dire consequences to Israel’s social cohesion, security, world standing and economy.

Despite pervasive tension, politicians have yet to engage in cross-spectrum dialogue to reach a solution. Rather, attempts have been made by outside parties, none of which have been embraced by either the coalition or opposition. The coalition has said it wants dialogue over the overhaul, but has refused to slow the legislative process — “not even for a minute,” Levin has insisted. The opposition has said it will not negotiate unless the coalition shows it genuinely seeks to work toward consensual reforms by halting the advance of the bills through parliament.

Leading the most prominent of the compromise efforts, President Isaac Herzog said on Monday that he is devoting all his time to finding a solution to the judicial overhaul crisis, saying the situation is “a very serious” constitutional and social crisis.

“We are in a serious, very serious situation, which may have political, economic, social and security consequences,” the president said at a ceremony in Tel Aviv.

“This is not a political compromise,” Herzog said of his efforts. “This is a Sisyphean effort to find a correct formula of balance and hope, because the situation is very difficult and worrying,” Herzog added.

On Saturday Herzog used unprecedented language to warn of the dangers of the current “oppressive” legislation, saying it undermined Israeli democracy and was hurling the country toward “a disaster” and “a nightmare.” He insisted it was the responsibility of “the leaders of the state” in the government to halt the breakneck legislative charge, and “abandon” the current legislative package, lest the country descend into a societal and constitutional abyss.