Lawmaker blasted for bill banning MKs from petitioning High Court

A Likud party lawmaker sparked an uproar on Thursday for indicating he was moving forward with a bill that would forbid individual MKs and parties to petition the High Court of Justice over legislation already approved in the Knesset.

Yoav Kisch, chairman of the Knesset’s House Committee, said Thursday that “the situation in which MKs and parties who ‘lose’ in Knesset vote turn to the High Court as a way of bypassing parliament shows complete disregard for democratic, legitimate decisions [reached in the Knesset] and for its independence.”

Kisch vowed to push through a bill to stop “this phenomenon” and to “act to strengthen Israel’s Knesset.”

The Likud MK said he would conduct a debate on the matter in the House Committee on July 4 and would present the bill as committee legislation, allowing for a fast-track to a first reading.

Kisch’s proposal was widely condemned across the political spectrum, by members of the coalition as well as the opposition.

Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni, a former justice minister, said that Kisch’s proposed bill was “part of the attempt of the extreme right to take over the democratic process and the courts.”

“The war on democracy is not a matter of theory — it’s here and now,” she said, adding that “when Likud joins up with Jewish Home, which joined up with Tekumah [a faction that is part of Jewish Home], which joined up with [Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor] Liberman, we have to present a united front for those for whom democracy is important. And it doesn’t matter if you call it center left or ‘soft’ right.”

Livni’s fellow party member, Merav Michaeli, said that “the right to petition the High Court is the right of every MK and every citizen.”

Another Zionist Union MK, Revital Sweid, had even harsher words, calling the move “a nail in the coffin of democracy.”

MK Roy Folkman, from the Kulanu party, a key coalition partner, also blasted the bill, claiming that Kisch must “internalize that the Knesset is not the Likud Central Committee.”

“It is inappropriate for the chairman of the House Committee to promote a bill meant to curb the independence of MKs,” he said.

Kisch hit back at his opponents, mocking the “knights of democracy” for ignoring “the will of the majority.”

In recent years, MKs have successfully petitioned the High Court over issues such as the controversial gas deal pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the anti-migration bill (Prevention of Infiltration Law) aimed mainly at African migrants and refugees, also the work of Likud lawmakers. In both cases, the court ruled that the bills be changed, forcing their initiators back to the drawing board.

Previously, Kisch was behind a recent bill aimed at limiting the ability of right and left wing organizations to engage in or help political campaigns during elections.

The proposed legislation would ban any group conducting polls, registering voters or advertising on the internet or in the media from accepting more than NIS 20,000 ($5,000) per month during the run-up to elections.

The bill targets, among others, V15, a grassroots organization which, with foreign funding, unsuccessfully pushed to unseat Netanyahu during last year’s elections. It operated within a loophole in the law by not trying to get voters to vote for a specific party or candidate, but just against Netanyahu.