Israel’s Parliament Passes Netanyahu Judicial Reform Law Strengthening Judge Appointments

Israel’s Parliament adopted a controversial law on Thursday, March 27, that strengthens political power in the appointment of judges, with a vote of 67 in favor and one against.

“Judicial reform in Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu won't back down”

France 24

The amendment modifying the composition of the judges nomination commission was immediately challenged by the opposition before the Supreme Court, after the opposition decided to boycott the ballot.

France 24

The vote came as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government revived its justice reform project after it had been suspended by the executive shortly after the start of the war triggered by the bloody Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.

France 24 said the project has sparked “one of the largest popular protest movements in Israel’s history,” and it described opposition and thousands of protesters taking to the streets daily in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

The law would take effect only at the start of the next legislature, no later than the end of 2026, and it would keep the judges nomination commission at nine members with a five-member majority required for any nomination.

Yair Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, announced on the social network X the filing of a petition with the Supreme Court against the Judges Law on behalf of several opposition parties, just minutes after Parliament’s vote.

The Movement for a Quality Government, an NGO at the forefront of the fight against the justice reform, also announced that it had filed a petition before the High Court, as did the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

Haaretz

In remarks before the MPs, Justice Minister Yariv Levin accused the Supreme Court of having overstepped its functions by reducing to zero the role of the Knesset, saying the Court has arrogated the power to annul laws.

Public Sénat reported that Israeli MPs voted by 64 votes (out of 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament) to abolish the “reasonableness” clause, which allows judges to strike down government decisions deemed “unreasonable.”

Public Sénat quoted political science professor Denis Charbit arguing the reform is “a turning point that significantly changes the balance of power between the Parliament and the government, on the one hand, and the judicial institution, on the other.”

Public Sénat said Daniel Shek, Israel’s ambassador to France from 2006 to 2010, denounced the reform as “This battle over justice is the government’s will to seize the last check on power and ensure that justice is entirely dependent on the government.”

“The container ship San Antonio, flying the Maltese flag and owned by the French CMA CGM shipping line, came under attack on Tuesday in the Strait of Hormuz, CMA CGM said on Wednesday morning”

Public Sénat

Shek also described the reform as facilitating the government’s pursuit of a “regime-change attempt, aiming to eradicate, in words if not in practice, Israeli democracy,” and he argued the Supreme Court is “the only real check on the institutions.”

Public Sénat tied the stakes to the “reasonableness” clause’s deterrent effect, with Charbit saying it allowed “dozens, hundreds of projects” to fail because there was the possibility for the judiciary to say “stop.”

The same report described an exceptional popular mobilization, saying “Civil society is mobilizing in an unprecedented way and with complete perseverance,” and it cited protests that reached Haifa, Jerusalem, and many coastal cities.

It also said that on Saturday, nearly 220,000 people entered the Holy City to protest this reform, while Public Sénat described the mobilization as “not a mobilization linked to security or sectoral issues; it is really about the fundamentals.”