Coalition whip Ofir Katz (Likud) submitted a bill to amend the Basic Law on the Knesset this week. The bill was titled “Expanding the grounds for preventing participation in elections.”
To date, the Supreme Court has demanded that significant evidence of “support for terrorism” be presented to justify the disqualification of a candidate or ticket by the Central Elections Committee. But under the proposed amendment, a few comments would be enough to disqualify a candidate or party (“expressing sympathy or support for armed struggle, even if it wasn’t done in an ongoing fashion”).
In addition, even supporting a lone terrorist, as opposed to a terrorist organization, would now be grounds for disqualification. For instance, a Knesset member’s visit to the family of the “terrorist,” or a sympathetic tweet.
The amendment’s goal is to force the Supreme Court to disqualify Arab MKs. In Katz’s view, Article 7a of the Basic Law has hitherto “been narrowly interpreted by the Supreme Court.” In a sense, one could say that the amendment seeks to override the court, or more accurately, its (narrow) interpretation of the law over the years.
According to the Basic Law on the Knesset, the Central Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify a candidate or ticket requires the court’s approval. Consequently, over the years, a fixed ritual has been enacted before every election: The committee disqualifies an Arab candidate or ticket, and the High Court of Justice overturns the decision.
The proposed amendment’s explanatory notes say that “this great power given the Supreme Court guts the committee’s power and makes its decisions devoid of any real weight or value.” We need to pause for a moment on this claim, because it reflects one of the driving forces behind the government’s planned legal “reform” – the feeling that the gap between what the laws say and how the High Court interprets them is too wide.
But the real land mine in the existing law isn’t the provision about support for terrorism; it’s the first provision – “A ticket shall not run in Knesset elections and a person shall not be a candidate in Knesset elections if the ticket’s goals or actions or the person’s actions ... explicitly or implicitly ... reject Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state.”
I object to this provision, because it means that anyone who advocates turning Israel into a state of all its citizens – the ABCs of democracy – ought to be disqualified from running for Knesset. Because that is what I think, I was happy that whenever the Central Elections Committee disqualified the Balad party, the High Court would overturn the decision.
But for this very reason, it was also clear to me that anyone who supports the existing law would want to tear his hair out whenever the court overturned such a decision despite the fact that the law couldn’t be clearer. I and the law’s supporters identified the same “problem” – the High Court had interpreted the law in a way that circumvents what it actually says.
One of the strongest arguments made by opponents of the planned legal overhaul is that it is intended to prevent Arab representation in the Knesset. That’s true, but the legal infrastructure for this already exists, and I don’t recall any battle being waged against it. Perhaps opponents of the overhaul had counted on the High Court taking care of it without any need to change the law.
But people who want to ensure Arab representation in the Knesset shouldn’t leave this to the court to do through creative interpretation of the law. Instead, they should fight to get this provision repealed. And that can only be done in the Knesset.
The truly interesting question is this: How may Knesset members and what percentage of the public would be willing to repeal the law saying that anyone who supports a state of all its citizens and opposes Israel being “Jewish and democratic” should not be allowed to run for Knesset?
Will You Fight for Arab Representation in the Knesset?
Coalition whip Ofir Katz (Likud) submitted a bill to amend the Basic Law on the Knesset this week. The bill was titled “Expanding the grounds for preventing participation in elections.”
To date, the Supreme Court has demanded that significant evidence of “support for terrorism” be presented to justify the disqualification of a candidate or ticket by the Central Elections Committee. But under the proposed amendment, a few comments would be enough to disqualify a candidate or party (“expressing sympathy or support for armed struggle, even if it wasn’t done in an ongoing fashion”).
In addition, even supporting a lone terrorist, as opposed to a terrorist organization, would now be grounds for disqualification. For instance, a Knesset member’s visit to the family of the “terrorist,” or a sympathetic tweet.
The amendment’s goal is to force the Supreme Court to disqualify Arab MKs. In Katz’s view, Article 7a of the Basic Law has hitherto “been narrowly........
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