Liberman vows to push legislation limiting Supreme Court

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman vowed Saturday to push legislation that would limit the power of the Supreme Court to overturn Knesset decisions, Israel Radio reported.

In comments made at a cultural event in Bat Yam, the Yisrael Beytenu party leader said the court’s recent decision to reverse the disqualification of controversial Arab MK Hanin Zoabi, as well as its ruling that knocked down a law allowing for the detention of infiltrators, were hurting the country.

Liberman said it was unacceptable for the judicial branch to interfere time and time again in the decisions of the legislative branch and said he believed Israel should establish a constitutional court to deal with such affairs.

Earlier this month Liberman called the court’s ruling to reinstate Zoabi of the Joint (Arab) List a “disgrace to Israeli democracy, which does not know how to defend itself.”

Eight of the court’s nine justices voted on February 18 to overturn a decision by the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Zoabi as well as Baruch Marzel of the far-right Yachad party from participating in the upcoming general elections on March 17.

Anyone “with a pair of eyes knows that Zoabi violated the law which bars those supporting terror and the armed struggle against Israel, or those denying the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, from serving in its parliament,” the foreign minister said of the decision.

The Knesset committee had justified its decision based on what it said were the extremist views held by both candidates – Marzel for alleged anti-Arab racism and Zoabi for alleged support for Hamas and opposition to Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.

Zoabi has hailed the ruling, saying she was relieved that the court “viewed my comments and actions to be within the bounds of the law of free expression.” The firebrand MK, known for anti-Zionist statements, said the ruling “exposed the enormous gap between statements attributed to me and what I actually said.”

According to her attorneys, her disqualification had been based on misattributed and inaccurately quoted statements.

Zoabi was also disqualified by the Central Elections Committee in 2013, but that decision too was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

Tamar Pileggi and Marissa Newman contributed to this report.