‘Reasonableness’ bill okayed for final Knesset votes next week, as opposition fumes

Amid tumultuous scenes, a Knesset committee on Wednesday night okayed a controversial bill drastically limiting use of the reasonableness judicial standard for final approval by the plenum, paving the way for the coalition to pass a part of its far-reaching judicial overhaul for the first time.

The second and third readings on the bill, an amendment to Basic Law: Judiciary,  will begin on Sunday in the Knesset plenum, and the bill is expected to be approved and passed into law on Monday or Tuesday.

The approval came at the end of several marathon sessions by the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, which had to slog through 20,000 objections seemingly meant to gum up the legislation and stop the government from racing ahead with the bill, after compromise talks collapsed last month.

Chaos took hold in the committee in the final voting session late Wednesday night, as several parliamentary advisers of opposition MKs interrupted the proceedings by grabbing the committee microphones and denouncing panel chairman Simcha Rothman and the coalition, including one woman who stormed up to Rothman and shouted in his face.

The aides were swiftly ejected by Knesset orderlies.

Opposition MKs themselves erupted on numerous occasions throughout the course of Tuesday night and Wednesday in protest at what they alleged were serious violations of Knesset protocol by Rothman during the voting process, including miscounts of the votes.

But Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik sided with the committee chairman in every instance and rejected the opposition’s claims of a flawed process, saying she and her team had closely observed the voting and insisted that all problems were dealt with in real-time.

The Knesset plenum is scheduled to begin the second and third readings of the bill on Sunday morning. Explanations for the 27,674 reservations submitted by the opposition against the legislation will be heard over a period of over 24 hours until Monday noon.

A parliamentary adviser shouts Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman MK Simcha Rothman during a hearing to approve the coalition’s bill to drastically reduce the courts’ use of the reasonableness standard, July 19, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Voting will then begin on the legislation which is currently expected to be approved and passed into law.

The bill would ban the Supreme Court and lower courts from using the reasonableness standard to review decisions made by the government and cabinet ministers.

Proponents say the bar on use of the doctrine is needed to halt judicial interference in government decisions, arguing that it amounts to unelected judges substituting the judgment of elected officials for their own.

Opponents argue, however, that it will weaken the court’s ability to review decisions that harm civil rights, and hinder its ability to protect senior civil servants who hold sensitive positions such as the attorney general, police commissioner and others, from dismissal on improper grounds.

The measure will likely be the first part of the government’s plan to remake the judiciary to pass into law, and street protests have ratcheted up as it has moved toward the final votes. Hundreds of activists are currently marching from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with plans to demonstrate outside the parliament as the vote takes place and Wednesday also saw a warning strike from Israel Medical Association and hundreds of military reservists join a growing movement of volunteers refusing to serve in protest of the overhaul.

The committee voted through the night on Tuesday and into Wednesday on the more than 27,000 reservations, or proposed amendments, to the bill submitted by opposition MKs, doing so in batches of 20 due to the enormous number of reservations filed as part of the opposition’s effort to filibuster progress of the legislation.

The committee rejected every single reservation and finished voting on them at one o’clock in the morning on Wednesday. Revisions to the reservations were then discussed for over three hours, after which voting on those revisions continued until 11:30 a.m., and then commenced again at 9 p.m. after being forced into a lengthy recess due to the Knesset plenum session.

After Rothman announced that voting would continue for 30 minutes despite the opening of the Knesset plenum session, opposition MKs erupted in furious protest, including Labor leader MK Merav Michaeli, who was ejected from the hearing by Rothman during her protestations.

Labor party leader MK Merav Michaeli is ejected from the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee during voting on a bill to severely limit the courts’ use of the reasonableness judicial standard, July 19, 2023. (Danny Shem Tov/Flash90)

“You are allowing yourself to trample on every basic standard of human behavior” stormed Michaeli.

Numerous other opposition MKs were ejected from the committee during the course of proceedings Tuesday night and Wednesday, including MKs Gilad Kariv of Labor, Ron Katz of Yesh Atid, Efrat Rayten of Labor, Sharren Haskel of National Unity, for interrupting the voting procedure after they objected to the rapid pace in which Rothman rattled through the votes, among other issues.

“There is a limit to the misuse of the authority of the committee chairman,” fumed Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz Tuesday night in protest at what he alleged were procedural flaws.

“We won’t have a dictatorship here, not even of the committee, the Knesset protocol is being abused here,” he said.

Afik said, however, that from her observations Rothman’s pace was reasonable.

Rothman himself responded in the final voting session by fiercely criticizing the behavior of the opposition, alleging that their constant interruptions of speakers in the committee and of the proceedings were “a total disgrace,” and that he had acceded to every request by the opposition during the voting process.

Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman MK Simcha Rothman speaking during a hearing on the coalition’s bill to drastically reduce the courts’ use of the reasonableness standard, July 19, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“You acted with a lack of good faith in the most extreme manner possible,” said Rothman.

And coalition whip MK Ophir Katz of the Likud also denounced the behavior of the opposition MKs, calling them “a group of cry babies” who had tried to illegitimately hold up the passage of the bill.

“There were unceasing interruptions by opposition MKs and efforts to confuse the committee staff, raising hands at the wrong time, but the process was proper… You tried to create flaws,” alleged Katz.

Katz at an earlier stage had requested that the opposition withdraw some of their revisions, but opposition MK Ze’ev Elkin of National Unity rejected the request, saying the weighty impact of the legislation under discussion meant it should not have been advanced without agreement with the opposition.

Elkin also added that the opposition’s filibustering might give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more time to amend the bill, a step it had been reported he was considering; the prime minister “is accustomed to zigzagging and reversing himself,” the MK said.

In another uproar, opposition MKs claimed that one of the revisions had been accepted after Likud MK Amit Halevi mistakenly voted in favor but that the committee chairman had wrongly recorded it as being defeated.

Labor MK Naama Lazimi is ejected from the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee room during a hearing on the coalition’s bill to drastically reduce the courts’ use of the reasonableness standard, July 19, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Afik was brought in once again to adjudicate and ruled that despite Halevi’s mistake the opposition had still lost the vote.

Opposition MKs, including National Unity MK Sharren Haskel, claimed that numerous such mistakes had been made during the many hours of voting and demanded that Afik review several hours of footage to understand the gravity of the procedural errors, a demand which Afik refused.

At the beginning of the final voting session, the legal adviser noted that the opposition had requested an investigation into 14 votes and that Haskel had forwarded four videos to her office of votes she believed had been wrongly counted.

“We watched the videos you sent us, and I also spoke with the committee manager regarding all the votes,” said Afik, noting that she had been present for many votes, as had the legal adviser to the committee, and that the nature of the voting, by raising hands or by vocally stating for or against during often tempestuous scenes, made reviewing the complaints difficult.

“In the last two days, there were votes on 27,600 reservations, the vast majority of which were not substantive. There were about 1,380 votes on reservations and another 1,300 votes on revisions…

“The committee manager is of the opinion that the results reported by him were accurate and were done optimally under these circumstances… I did not see a fault in it that would have changed the results of the vote.”