Israel Braces for Fight over Power of Judiciary

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to propose a set of reforms to the country’s judiciary that would rein in its power to overturn laws and increase parliamentary oversight.

The proposals have rocked Israel’s political establishment, with left-wing opponents and liberal media commentators claiming that Netanyahu’s reforms spell the end of Israeli democracy. But others disagree.

For decades, Israel’s judiciary has been a bastion of liberal orthodoxy, holding back the will of a growing conservative electorate. Ethnic and religious divisions play a role: the judiciary is seen as predominantly of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) origin, and secular; meanwhile, the political influence of Middle Eastern (Sephardi) Jews and religious Jews has expanded.

Israel has no official constitution; its constitutional jurisprudence focuses on a set of supreme laws, called Basic Laws. Much as the U.S. Supreme Court did in Marbury v. Madison (1803), Israel’s highest court simply arrogated the power of judicial review.

The backlash has been amplified recently by the prosecution of Netanyahu over flimsy charges of corruption, orchestrated by a law enforcement bureaucracy that operates almost entirely without political oversight.

Proposals to reform the judiciary were put forward before the November 1 election by one of Netanyahu’s conservative political allies. While they are likely to be scaled back somewhat, they will be a top priority for Netanyahu’s new government.

Critics charge that he is trying to interfere in his own criminal case, and to “neuter” the judiciary; supporters see the change as a long overdue correction to a liberal “juristocracy.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.