The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial bill Thursday that will allow elected politicians more input into the selection of judges, a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms.
In the U.S., elected leaders play a role at every stage of the selection of federal judges — from nomination by the president to confirmation by the Senate. Many state and local judges are elected directly by the people.
However, in many other democracies, judges are selected by a commission, usually involving legal experts. In Israel, judges themselves participate in the commission, meaning that the judiciary has significant power over its own selection.
Netanyahu’s conservative political party, the Likud, has sought to correct what is perceived as a left-wing bias in the judiciary by opening up the selection process to members of the Knesset, which is typically more conservative.
The idea is one among several judicial reforms originally proposed by Netanyahu’s government in early 2023. His opponents launched a protest movement that lasted for months, and the ensuing debates divided the Israeli public.
Many blame those divisions for the country’s failure to anticipate the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023. Though the Palestinian terrorist group had been planning the attack long before, it may have believed that the attack would be more successful because of international perceptions that Israel had been weakened by its internal divisions.
The Netanyahu government passed one reform in mid-2023, ending the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to nullify the Basic Laws that function as a quasi-constitution and that provide the judiciary’s own authority, but the Court overturned that law.
The government then postponed further reforms, due to the political divisions. After October 7, it appeared willing to shelve the reforms indefinitely, but took them up again in recent months as the intensity of the war effort subsided.
Netanyahu has defended his government against claims by the opposition that his judicial reforms are a threat to democracy, noting that the reforms make the country more, not less, democratic, by reining in the power of judges.
The Netanyahu government is also fighting the Attorney General over the scope of her authority, which includes the ability to review and reverse government decisions and appointments — a level of power no comparable official has in any other democracy.
Netanyahu’s Cabinet voted earlier this week to fire the Attorney General, which will likely set up another legal battle. He has also fired the head of the Israel Security Agency, known as the Shin Bet or the Shabak.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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