From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Former attorney general Mandelblit lauds High Court judicial overhaul ruling as ‘second legal revolution’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Former attorney general Avichai Mandelblit welcomes the High Court of Justice’s landmark decision striking down the government’s reasonableness law, calling the ruling, the first to annul one of Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws, a “second legal revolution.”
“I want to congratulate my friends Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman. If Aharon Barak is the father of the first legal revolution – they should receive the title of the fathers of the second legal revolution,” Mandelblit tells Army Radio in a dig at the two conservative politicians who pushed for the legislation at the heart of the case.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman Rothman are two of the primary architects behind the government’s efforts to restrict the court’s powers of judicial review and impose greater political control over the judiciary, notably including over the appointment of judges.
During his time leading the top court, Barak led what was widely seen as a “constitutional revolution,” declaring the country’s so-called Basic Laws to be quasi-constitutional and expanding the judiciary’s power in a way that raised objections from the Israeli right.
Underpinning Mandelblit’s snipe at Levin and Rothman is the fact that, in its ruling yesterday, the court not only narrowly struck down the reasonableness limitation law, but an overwhelming 12 of the 15 justices ruled that the court has the authority to strike down Basic Laws, and a 13th said it has the right to do so in extreme circumstances.
That stance is being widely seen as a historic ruling, enshrining the principle that there are limits to the powers of the governing political majority, and that it does not have the right to undermine Israel’s democratic nature.
