JTA — Throughout 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans for a far-reaching judicial overhaul convulsed Israel and reverberated throughout the Diaspora, with liberal American Jewish leaders joining Israeli opponents of the plan in mass protests. Critics of the reforms in Israel and abroad perceived a threat to democratic norms. Proponents saw them as necessary to correct a judicial system that served as its own master, and it felt was out of step with popular sentiment.

Then came October 7. After Hamas led a rampage of mass killings and abductions inside Israel, Netanyahu cobbled together a unity government and shelved the reform plans. American Jewish organizations unified around support for Israel after the worst mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust. The judicial reforms were largely forgotten.

As more time passed, Netanyahu’s government did eventually manage to push through some parts of the reform agenda. But the biggest changes were blocked or passed into law with the stipulation that they would only take effect after the next election. With Netanyahu seeking another term in office on Oct. 27, his plans to overhaul the judiciary are back – and more far-reaching than they were in 2023.

This election’s impact on the court will likely be even greater given that a massive two-thirds of the court’s seats could be vacated over the next government’s full term. That would give the incoming leader power to shape the court in ways beyond the judicial reform package, which has needed Knesset support.

Both sides agree that the reforms would open the door to various pieces of legislation favored by the Netanyahu government, from regulating the media to strengthening the power of the Orthodox religious establishment. Depending on one’s view, the reforms could also weaken the country’s legal and institutional checks on government powers or curb judicial interference in the democratic process.

The ultra-nationalist Religious Zionist Party, a senior partner in Netanyahu’s coalition, calls the enhanced plan “Law and Justice 2.” It would include an effort to limit the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down legislation.

The new plan also calls for restricting who can petition the Supreme Court, potentially limiting the court’s ability to hear certain legal challenges, as well as changes to procedural rules governing its work. This petition process is one of the avenues employed by those who oppose the Netanyahu government’s positions on a wide range of issues.

“We are at a fateful crossroads for the State of Israel,” Bezalel Smotrich, the party’s leader and currently Israel’s finance minister, said Tuesday when presenting the plan. He added that the judicial appointments made during the next term “will shape the State of Israel for years to come.” The new plan, he said, represents “a change in the rules of the game.”

MK Simcha Rothman, a member of Smotrich’s party who has chaired the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee during the current term, said the new version of the plan would “return Israeli democracy to its proper course.”

He and other proponents argue that the existing system undercuts majority rule when the court, citing constitutional norms, limits or nullifies legislation passed by the Knesset. They believe the judicial reform would bolster Israeli democracy, particularly by strengthening the power of the legislature so that it would no........

© The Times of Israel