Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has condemned an attempted overhaul of the court system by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition as a “unilateral coup.”
In comments published by Israeli media, Lapid noted the apparent push to erode the judiciary’s independence came just one day before justices were set to debate a controversial new law that would allow a politician to circumvent a ban on convicted criminals serving as ministers.
“Like a gang of criminals, the day before the High Court hearing on the Deri Law, the government put a loaded gun on the table,” the opposition head protested.
Under the recently-passed legislation, the authority of the High Court of Justice would be severely curtailed and the Knesset would gain significant control over the judicial selection committee, which oversees the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court.
Netanyahu’s allies have expressed hopes of reversing Supreme Court rulings banning Israeli outposts on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and the extended detention of asylum-seekers from Africa, and are likely to direct the new court to let the ulta-Orthodox minority dodge the Israeli draft.
“What Yariv Levin presented today is not a legal reform, it is a threat,” Lapid said. “They threaten to destroy the entire constitutional structure of the State of Israel.”
Vowing to fight the proposed legislation “in every possible way,” Lapid insisted “those who carry out a unilateral coup in Israel need to know that we are not obligated to it in any way whatsoever.”
The new Israeli administration has defended the move as an effort to strengthen democracy, rather than undermine it. “We go to the polls and vote, choose, but time after time, people who we didn’t elect decide for us,” said Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a longtime critic of Israel’s supreme court. “That’s not democracy.”
“The time has come to act,” Levin insisted.