Two Democracies, One Playbook

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court of the United States did something unremarkable by the standards of any healthy democracy: it told a president no. In a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts — a jurist Trump himself appointed — the court held that the president had exceeded his constitutional authority in imposing sweeping tariffs through emergency powers, arrogating to himself the taxing prerogatives that the Constitution reserves exclusively for Congress. The justices ruled that Trump’s aggressive approach to tariffs was not permitted under a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, finding that it would give the president unconstrained power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope.

Trump’s response was instructive. He denounced the justices who ruled against him as a “disgrace.” He called the decision “terrible” and “totally defective.” Then — having been told he lacked congressional authorization to act as he had — he immediately searched for another legal vehicle to do largely the same thing. Trump used a different law to impose a 10 percent across-the-board tariff just hours after the ruling.

Israelis watching from afar might be forgiven for experiencing a sense of déjà vu.

Three years ago, the Netanyahu government launched what it called “judicial reform” — a suite of proposals that would have allowed the Knesset to override Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority, stripped the court of its ability to review the “reasonableness” of government decisions, and handed politicians near-total control over judicial appointments. Proponents argued it was about correcting an imbalance,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)