Today or tomorrow, there is a good chance the Knesset will vote on, and even pass, the so-called reasonableness bill. This legislation—the small part of the broader package of judicial reforms that has so far survived—would prevent the Supreme Court from repealing laws on the ground that they are “unreasonable,” and thus remove some of the arbitrariness of the court’s power. In the week leading up to the vote, protests have intensified, with demonstrators blocking roads and threatening not to appear for military reserve duty. Haviv Rettig Gur assesses the situation:
To the opposition, the change to “reasonableness” is the government’s first step in a much larger illiberal turn across all the institutions of the state, and so must be opposed irrespective of its specific content. . . . To coalition supporters, meanwhile, the current bill is such a small fragment of the original intended package that it demonstrates not the right’s illiberalism but its capacity and willingness to compromise, while the opposition’s frenzied campaign against so small a change proves the inability of the center-left (and some parts of the center-right) to do the same.
The real debate, in other words, isn’t about the content of the bill. It’s about trust, or the lack of it.
A Channel 12 poll earlier this month asked Israelis if they supported canceling the “reasonableness” test for government and ministerial decisions, as the government bill proposes. The poll found that 32 percent supported the idea while 42 percent opposed it. It then asked respondents if they supported blocking roads amid continuing protests against the government’s legislation. The opposition’s 42 percent (against the reasonableness law) dropped to 27 percent (supporting road blockages), while fully 68 percent of Israelis—equal to all coalition voters and between a third and half of opposition voters—oppose blocking roads.
The sticking power of any change depends on this vast middle ground. If the middle doesn’t support a change, the next government could easily alter it. . . . Even if the right wins, it loses. It will have passed an overhaul that is unlikely to survive the first change of power, while losing it the support of the middle without which it cannot make the change stick.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-judiciary-fight-reaches-a-climax-both-sides-set-to-lose/