Ex-justice minister Sa’ar: Coalition trying to dictate court verdict with ‘mafioso threat’

Opposition figures rail at coalition leaders for claiming the High Court has no authority to invalidate Basic Laws, accusing them of seeking to intimidate the justices as they weigh petitions against two contentious pieces of legislation.

“What the government has recently legislated are not Basic Laws but rather hasty, negligent and anti-democratic laws that were called ‘Basic Laws’ without any basis or judicial justification,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid charges.

He calls for the government to pass laws with “broad consensus, in a proper process, without corrupt personal motives behind them.”

National Unity MK Gideon Sa’ar, a former justice minister, accuses coalition heads of issuing a “mafioso threat” against the court, “in an attempt to dictate the verdict to the justices.”

“The majority of the nation opposes this thuggishness altogether,” he adds.