The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Justice Minister Yariv Levin in the driver’s seat, is currently pushing forward a blitz of legislative action to further advance its judicial overhaul agenda, designed to loosen legal restraints on government decisions, actions and policies.

Having already passed in March last year a law greatly increasing political influence over the selection of judges, and thus the judiciary itself, the latest tranche of coalition legislation would dramatically erode the power of legal officials and institutions to check executive power, before legal motions against government action can reach the courts.

Among the pieces of legislation being advanced to achieve these goals is a bill to make the attorney general a political appointee and strip the position of its authority to interpret the law for the government; a bill asserting political control over ministerial legal advisers; a bill giving a politician, the justice minister, control over the department for investigating police officials; and a bill making the military’s top lawyer subject to the authority of the chief of staff, among others.

In addition, the government will bring to a vote in the Knesset plenum this week a motion to the agenda declaring that the High Court of Justice cannot issue orders against amendments to Basic Laws legislated by the government.

That motion is targeted at petitions currently before the High Court calling on it to annul the politicization of the judicial selection process. It also seeks to undermine the court’s landmark decision in January 2024, annulling a law passed by the government the previous year to ban the use of the judicial standard of reasonableness. Such a motion would not have the force of law, but could be used as a political cudgel against the court.

Finally, the fierce rhetoric by government ministers and coalition MKs in recent weeks, including calls to disobey the court, appears designed to delegitimize the court and possibly prepare the ground for actually outright........

© The Times of Israel