{"id":35498,"date":"2022-09-05T12:21:08","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T12:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=35498"},"modified":"2022-09-05T12:21:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T12:21:08","slug":"lapid-we-must-distinguish-between-judicial-reform-and-the-poisoning-of-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/05\/lapid-we-must-distinguish-between-judicial-reform-and-the-poisoning-of-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lapid: We must distinguish between judicial reform and the poisoning of democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Monday said Israel\u2019s judicial system is in need of changes, but criticized right-wing political rivals for using reform as a pretext to \u201cdismantle and destroy\u201d the legal system for personal benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legal world is under attack, the goal of which is to dismantle and destroy it,\u201d Lapid said at the opening of the Israel Bar Association\u2019s Legal Conference in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

Pledging to defend the justice system, Lapid said he was \u201cnot blind to its flaws, but first we will make sure it is safe from those who wish it ill.\u201d He added that any changes \u201cshould serve the country, not those who try to destroy [the justice system] for personal reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lapid\u2019s comments were aimed at political rivals in the opposition, chief among them Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is currently on trial for three separate corruption charges. Maintaining his innocence, Netanyahu claims the charges against him are the fabrication of a biased police and prosecution, egged on by a leftist media and enabled by a weak former attorney general. He has provided no evidence for such claims.<\/p>\n

Judicial reform is an election issue for Israelis going to the polls in less than two months, and it is potentially country-shaping in terms of how laws are interpreted, upheld and enforced, as well as affecting public trust in the justice system.<\/p>\n

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The prime minister, fighting to convert his caretaker premiership into a permanent one, said that the fight over the judicial system is part and parcel of preventing democratic erosion.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters outside the Prime Minister\u2019s Office in Jerusalem, August 29, 2022. (Screenshot: Telegram)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIn the past, governments fell when tanks stormed three places: the parliament, the television station, and the courthouse. In the world we live in today, democracies do not fall, they are poisoned. They are chewed up from the inside,\u201d the prime minister said.<\/p>\n

Lapid said that he hopes to increase oversight of the State Attorney\u2019s Office, separate the role of the government legal adviser from the attorney general, reduce the Supreme Court\u2019s ability to intervene in Israel\u2019s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws, create a balanced mechanism for the Knesset to set aside a Supreme Court decision that a law is unconstitutional, and raise minimum sentences for some crimes.<\/p>\n

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On limiting the Supreme Court\u2019s power, Lapid said he supports raising the number of justices required to invalidate a law from the current simple majority of justices sitting on a panel. He also said the court \u201cshould not intervene in Basic Laws, except in an expanded and special composition and only on condition that there is a contradiction between [those laws] and other Basic Laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Lapid said that he would support a superseding clause that would enable the Knesset to reinstate invalidated laws with a majority of 70 of 120 MKs \u2014 provided that 10 of those 70 came from the opposition.<\/p>\n

Likud\u2019s judicial reform policymaker Yariv Levin has previously supported a version of such a clause with a simple 61-MK majority. This would enable a functional coalition to reinstate any legislation that had been shot down. Former justice minister and Zionist Spirit head Ayelet Shaked \u2014 campaigning to be a keystone in a broad unity government \u2014 said at the same event on Monday that she supports a 61-MK majority as well.<\/p>\n

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Prime Minister Yair Lapid speaks at the Israel Bar Association\u2019s Legal Conference in Tel Aviv, September 5, 2022. (Gideon Markowicz\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Separating the attorney general role and increasing the number of judges needed to disqualify legislation have been proposed in the past by Likud members. Lapid, however, did not commit to reaching into the opposition for compromise. He charged rather that current reforms proposed by political rivals were only meant to protect Netanyahu from the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do it, but only after we know that it does not become a tool to save influential defendants from their trial,\u201d said the prime minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a problem with criticizing the system,\u201d Lapid said. \u201cI have no problem with the claim that the system needs reform. I share a lot of the arguments against judicial activism, but make no mistake\u2014that\u2019s not what\u2019s happening now.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat is happening now is that people who want to harm the court for personal reasons are abusing the need to fix the system. They are making dangerous use of all the reforms we need to make,\u201d the prime minister added.<\/p>\n

Lapid said that Netanyahu\u2019s narrative that the charges against him are a conspiracy are part of an \u201corchestrated campaign\u201d to \u201cbrainwash an entire country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time we heard the conspiracy theory, we laughed. Because it was a ridiculous idea: That a religious attorney general from the right, a religious commissioner from the right, a state attorney from the right \u2014 all of whom Netanyahu personally appointed \u2014 recruited hundreds of police officers and prosecutors, all of whom were partners in a secret plot to overthrow the same Netanyahu,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the second time we also laughed. But the third time less so. And by the 300th time we realized that there were too many people listening to it, and by the 3,000th time they believed it,\u201d the prime minister charged.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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