Former AG refers to government’s judicial makeover plan as a ‘pogrom’

Former attorney general Yehuda Weinstein castigates the government’s radical judicial makeover plan, saying: “It is not a reform, it’s a pogrom.”

At a conference at Tel Aviv University, Weinstein, who served under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for six years between 2010 and 2016, says the hardline new government “is trying to change the justice system we know, and it is all being done hastily and with no consideration. I oppose everything it includes.”

Weinstein lays out his objection to changing the current method of selecting High Court justices and its president, to allowing ministers to appoint their own legal advisers, and to “everything the justice minister has suggested.”

However, he also says he could agree to limits on the court’s ability to strike down laws and even for an override clause to be passed, enabling 64 lawmakers in the 120-member Knesset to nullify rulings.