Judicial overhaul still a ‘sword on the neck’ of judiciary, ex-Supreme Court judge says
Former justice Anat Baron says the government’s judicial overhaul would have created a ‘totalitarian state,’ warns efforts to remove democratic guardrails ongoing
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Former High Court Justice Anat Baron said that the judicial overhaul agenda pursued by the government before October 7 would have led to a “totalitarian regime in Israel.”
Speaking to the Haaretz daily, Baron said that the government’s flagship policy goal of asserting control over the selection of judges in Israel would have politicized the judicial selection process and destroyed the country’s democratic guardrails.
From the beginning of the government’s tenure it embarked on a program of an extreme judicial reform driven on by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, whose key policies were to grant the government almost total control of the judicial selection process, and make it almost impossible for the High Court to exercise judicial review over legislation.
The legislation to enact those policies was frozen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the last moment after massive protests, threats of reserve duty refusal, and warnings of strike action shook the country in March last year.
The former justice insisted that the government was still engaging in efforts to advance different aspects of the judicial overhaul in a more discreet manner and on numerous fronts.
Levin, Baron told Haaretz, “sought to destroy everything that exists, to destroy the judicial system through the politicization of the gatekeepers and the Judicial Selection Committee.”
Once you have the politicization of the judicial appointments process “you’ve lost the courts, you’ve lost democracy,” she continued.
“In our governance structure, the government controls the Knesset. The ones who remain on guard are mainly the judiciary and its judicial review. Now, when the government appoints its own people to the Supreme Court, and makes sure that there is no judicial review of its actions, then in practice there is only one branch of government — and the result is a totalitarian regime,” Baron contended.
Levin himself subsequently conceded that the legislation was anti-democratic.
Baron said in her interview that the judicial overhaul was “continuing to run wild” in different ways, saying that the government was trying to advance the agenda “under the radar,” and seeking to take control of “loci of power” including the police, media, the High Court itself, the Attorney General’s Office and the Shin Bet security service.
“The only purpose of these actions is to strengthen the government, and the meaning of implementing this plan is the establishment of a de facto totalitarian regime, a place we do not want to be,” said Baron.
She said in particular that she believes the Israel Police was being politicized, saying that the “guiding spirit of the commander,” meaning far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, was discernible in the frequent incidents of police violence against anti-government protestors.
Ben Gvir’s recent threat to fire the police commissioner after he reported to the attorney general on the minister’s repeated interference in police operational decisions which the High Court explicitly banned him from doing was another manifestation of Ben Gvir’s efforts to politicize the force she said.
The government’s attempt to circumvent the attorney general in an apparent effort to continue with a policy she had said was unlawful was another example Baron pointed to.
She also insisted that Levin’s refusal to appoint High Court justice Isaac Amit as the new president of the Supreme Court, and his refusal to fill the two empty spots on the Supreme Court bench, were further expressions of the ongoing effort by the government to pursue its judicial overhaul agenda.
“Not appointing a permanent president to the Supreme Court is another way to damage the independence of judges whose decisions the government does not like.
“This is also reflected in the fact that the two positions that became vacant with the retirement of President [Esther] Hayut and myself are not being staffed. This is a threat by the government to the Supreme Court, a sword on its neck, with the message: “Get in line with us in [your] rulings and appointments.”
