At Tel Aviv protest, chair of Bar Association slams government’s judicial plans

Avi Himi, chair of the Israel Bar Association, slams Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s proposals to shake up the judiciary.

“You never got a mandate to change the regime, you never got a mandate to destroy democracy,” Himi says at tonight’s protest in Tel Aviv, in comments directed towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said that his government received a mandate from November’s voters to enact a wideseeping judicial reform platform, which would create parliamentary supremacy at the expense of the judiciary.

“It’s our right to scream, it’s our obligation to scream, such it is in a democracy,” Himi tells protesters on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street, encouraging them to keep the fight going.

“We won’t let them, we simply won’t let them,” he says, leading the crowd to erupt into a chant of “we won’t let them.”