Dismissing purported compromise as spin, Lapid calls for 18-month freeze in overhaul

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid offers his first reaction to the purported judicial overhaul compromise deal revealed last week, dismissing the terms and calling for an 18-month legislative freeze.

“Already a month ago, I told the president’s staff as well as my friends in the opposition that, ‘I’m warning you, a few days before the High Court hearings and before Netanyahu flies to the US, suddenly a compromise will show up that will seem too good to be true,” Lapid says at a conference.

He says the outlined deal which circulated “was not aimed at reaching an agreement, but aimed at getting Netanyahu a meeting in the White House, and at creating difficulties for High Court judges while they discuss petitions” against the reasonableness law at a hearing this week.

Instead, Lapid says, “what we should do is what I suggested right after the vote on the reasonableness clause: following the High Court hearings we should have an 18-month freeze in judicial overhaul legislation.”

Such a freeze should be enshrined in law, says Lapid, saying he presented such legislation to President Isaac Herzog which would call for any change concerning the “democratic foundations of Israel’s governance” to be legislated only with a wide agreement between the coalition and opposition.