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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government plans to charge ahead with a proposal to change the country’s judicial system, despite fierce criticism from top legal officials.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, has made the legal changes the centrepiece of his new government’s agenda and the surging opposition to them is presenting an early challenge for the Israeli leader.
Netanyahu’s comments yesterday came after opponents of the plan held nationwide protests on Saturday.
They say it would cripple judicial independence, foster corruption, set back minority rights and deprive Israel’s courts of credibility that helps fend off war crimes charges abroad.
The proposed changes have sparked an outcry from the Supreme Court’s top justice, who in rare public criticism called the proposed changes an “unbridled attack on the justice system”.
The country’s attorney general has also spoken out against the plan, as have many of her predecessors.
Israeli border police officers prevent protesters from blocking a highway during a rally against the government’s plans to overhaul the country’s legal system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. Tens of thousands of Israelis have gathered in central Tel Aviv to protest plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government to overhaul the country’s legal system and weaken the Supreme Court.
Despite the opposition, Netanyahu told a meeting of his Cabinet that voters cast their ballots in the November elections in support of his campaign promise to modify the justice system.
“We will complete legislating the reforms in a way that will correct what needs correcting, will totally protect individual rights and will restore the public’s faith in the justice system that so much requires this reform,” Netanyahu said.
There have been calls in the past to reform Israel’s justice system, which was given greater clout in the 1990s and has been seen since by critics as being too interventionist in the process of lawmaking. But the sweeping changes sought by Netanyahu’s justice minister have raised the alarm among opponents who see them as a death knell to Israel’s system of checks and balances and in turn, its democracy. — Al-Jazeera
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