Democrats MK Kariv says Eisenkot-led bloc will move rapidly to repeal judicial overhaul laws

Democrats MK Gilad Kariv said on Wednesday that his party and the Gadi Eisenkot-led bloc will move ahead quickly with repealing key judicial overhaul laws passed by the previous government even before a new government is formed.

Kariv insisted that repealing the laws would be possible within the short timeframe for coalition-building, and said the legal problems that emerged over the controversial legislation passed by the last government would make the task of repealing them easier.

The Democrats MK said that the focus would be on repealing the law increasing political influence over the Judicial Selection Committee and the appointment of judges, the law giving the government power to ignore the legal position of the attorney general, and the government’s legislation radically overhauling broadcast media regulation.

According to reports in multiple Hebrew media outlets on Wednesday, the Eisenkot-led bloc has agreed in principle to establish four special Knesset committees that would pass one piece of legislation each to repeal those laws, as well as the law passed by the last government removing the Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) from the authority of the State Attorney’s Office.

Under the previous government, the Knesset passed a raft of measures to reduce the power of the judiciary and curtail legal restraints on legislative power.

Chief among these was the law removing all input from the judiciary over the appointment of Supreme Court justices and politicizing the judicial selection process, and the law allowing the government to ignore the legal opinion of the attorney general.

“Since we’re not seeking to make new changes [to the legal regime] but instead returning to the old system, then the legislative process is relatively simple,” Kariv told The Times of Israel.

“There will be a lot of opposition from right-wing parties in committee, but these will not be complicated debates,” he continued.

Kariv asserted that since major legal problems were raised during the legislative process for all four laws the bloc is seeking to repeal, including by committee legal advisers and the attorney general, repealing them will be even simpler.

The High Court of Justice has already frozen implementation of the DIPI law and key aspects of the media law, and was highly critical of the judicial appointments reform law in a court hearing on petitions against the measure.

“The law for changing the Judicial Selection Committee is not constitutional and so it can be repealed,” Kariv continued, adding that the special committee would nevertheless seek the proper legal input from the attorney general and others on the issue.

On Wednesday, the Eisenkot-led bloc succeeded in establishing the all-important Knesset Arrangements Committee, which controls Knesset activity before a new government is formed.

MK Roy Folkman of Eisenkot’s Yashar party was selected to chair the Arrangements Committee, on which Eisenkot’s bloc, together with the Arab-led parties, has a majority.

The Arrangements Committee will now be able to establish the special committees to pass the legislation, and those committees themselves will have a majority of MKs from Eisenkot’s bloc and the Arab parties.

To pass bills repealing the judicial overhaul laws within the potentially narrow window before a new election is called if no candidate can form a government, the special committees will need to seek an exemption from the Arrangements Committee from the usual 45-day waiting period between submitting legislation to the Knesset and holding a preliminary vote in the plenum.

All the legislation under consideration will need to be private members’ bills, meaning that they will first require approval by a majority of the 120 MKs in the plenum.

Once approved in a preliminary reading, the bills will then need to be brought to their specific special committees for preparation for their first readings, after which they will need further preparation in committee before being brought for their final, back-to-back second and third readings in order to pass into law.