1,600 academics join call for economic shutdown if government forces constitutional crisis

Some 1,600 leading academics join a call by Tel Aviv University head Ariel Porat to bring the economy to a halt if the government forces a constitutional crisis over the judicial overhaul.

The call comes with the High Court of Justice set to discuss the first plank of the controversial judicial overhaul plan, which limit the court’s oversight over cabinet and ministerial decisions.

“If the government had known ahead of time how the public would react to the revolution, they might not have been a constitutional revolution,” Porat wrote.”The next major step that may be upon us soon, which is incomparably more serious than the elimination of the reasonableness clause, is a ‘constitutional crisis.'”

“We, the citizens of the country, must not wait until this crisis arrives and only then act. It may be too late. We must act now,” he says.