Bennett vows to curb court ‘activism’ after migrants ruling

Education Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday slammed the High Court of Justice for what he said constituted meddling in the governance of the country and threatened to curb “this activism.”

He spoke a day after the High Court limited to 12 months the maximum detention period for illegal migrants in Israel, repealing part of a government-sponsored law that capped the term at 20 months. Bennett, who heads the right-wing Jewish Home party, warned that if it continued in the same vein, the court would lose the confidence of the public.

“The High Court is wrong in intervening, for the third time, in a decision by the elected leadership, and reducing the detention period from 20 months to 12,” Bennett said in a statement posted to his Facebook page. “The government should govern, and judges should judge.”

In recent years, an estimated 47,000 African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have entered Israel illegally via Egypt, seeking asylum or work.

“The residents of south Tel Aviv are paying a daily price for these erroneous decisions,” he lamented, referring to the areas in the south of the city where many of the migrants live. “The State of Israel is fighting for its character and identity. This intervention by the High Court is inappropriate, and it binds our hands in this crucial campaign. Having said that, we must respect its decision.

“On the other hand, the justices of the Supreme Court should understand that with their over-intervention, they erode public confidence in them, and if the excess of intervention will continue, we will act to halt this activism,” he warned.

Bennett added that he fully backs his fellow Jewish Home party member Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who also strongly opposed reducing the detention time and criticized the court decision.

Opposition MK Tzipi Livni [Zionist Uion], who served as the previous justice minister, said that while she doesn’t oppose the principles behind the so-called Infiltrators Law, she does have a problem with the abuse hurled at the High Court.

“I am against the no-holds-barred attack on the High Court,” she wrote on her Facebook page and called on Shaked to do her job and stand up for the legal system she heads.

“The justice minister, any justice minister, must defend the High Court and its crucial role in Israeli democracy, also when disagreeing with it, she wrote.

Referring to Shaked’s campaign and recent comments by MK Moti Yogev of Jewish Home, who spoke of bulldozing the High Court of Justice, Livni added, “The real story is not the decision that was made yesterday, but the intention of the government to weaken the High Court and the gatekeepers [of democracy].”

Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev noted in a statement that “the court we will deal with by choosing judges and an attorney-general who don’t base their position on legal activism.”

Regev added that she intends to ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had praised the court ruling, to rehabilitate the neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv.

According to a statement from his office Tuesday, the prime minister “expressed satisfaction that the High Court of Justice has accepted in principle the state’s position, according to which the illegal influx of labor migrants is unacceptable and that they may be held in order to achieve the necessary deterrence. The ruling will be studied and the state will act to implement it.”

Tuesday’s ruling was the third time the High Court of Justice addressed the law or one of its revisions since it was first enacted in 2013. In previous rulings it sent the law back to the government for further amendments, deeming it unconstitutional.

According to the ruling, the government will not be allowed to hold migrants in detention facilities for a period exceeding 12 months, as opposed to the 20-month period that the government has been imposing. The ruling forces the state to release hundreds of migrants currently held in the Holot detention facility near Israel’s southern border with Egypt. Aside from disputing the length of the detention period, the nine-judge panel ratified the law.