Facts about Israel’s Supreme Court that are not well known
Democracy in Israel is endangered, according to tens of thousands of protesters, by proposed court reforms. Consider: democracy is a system of checks and balances. There are no checks on Israel’s Supreme Court.
The checks on the US Supreme Court are twofold: the US constitution and the right of Congress, i.e., of the American people, to confirm or not to confirm a nominee by the president of the US. Neither check is in place on Israel’s Supreme Court. Israel has no constitution, and Israel’s elected representatives have no say in who serves on the court.
Consider further: Israel’s Supreme Court is not required to apply the law in reaching a decision. It may apply a standard that it itself devised: “reasonableness.” Any group of people will disagree on what is reasonable. The purpose of law is to exclude precisely such subjective criteria as legally determinative. Yet, the court relies on this standard broadly.
Danger to democracy? A court that need not base its decisions on the law — unless one credits the court’s own invention of the legal standard of “reasonableness” — and a court whose members are essentially self-selecting is a danger to democracy.
Also a danger to democracy: Opposition lawmakers, members of Knesset, who literally stand on the table and sing, rather than sit and argue, before they are expelled from the Knesset.
The sole danger that might reside in the proposed court reforms is one that would relieve Prime Minister Netanyahu of being tried for the crimes he has been charged with. That is not reform. That is despotism.
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