Coalition said advancing law aimed at delaying High Court’s reasonableness ruling

Lawmakers from the Shas coalition party are advancing a bill that would temporarily extend the time in which High Court justices can publish their rulings on petitions they have overseen, in an attempt to give the court an option to postpone its ruling on whether to void the government’s reasonableness law, Hebrew media reports.

In an unprecedented leak, the draft ruling was published last week, showing that the court intends to strike down the key judicial overhaul law by a razor-thin margin, 8 to 7.

Much criticism has focused on the intention to publish the ruling during wartime, and on the fact that without the rulings of two justices — former chief justice Esther Hayut and Anat Baron — who retired in October and can only publish rulings by mid-January, three months after the hearing, the decision would be reversed and leave the reasonableness law in effect.

The highly contentious law nixed the ability of the court to review government and ministerial decisions based on the doctrine of reasonableness.

The new reported bill would temporarily extend the time in which justices can publish their rulings to nine months after the hearing in the corresponding case, rather than three. This would enable — but not force — the court to push off its announcement of the ruling.