Former chief justice Hayut: Disastrous initiatives pose real threat to democratic pillars

In her first public comments since retiring from the Supreme Court last year, former court president Esther Hayut says she is “observing with great concern the disastrous initiatives and actions that pose a real threat to the independence and autonomy of essential democratic pillars.”

She attacks those who “misuse democracy while cynically exploiting democratic tools,” and take actions that “erode the anchors of democracy and the democratic regime as a whole.”

Speaking at a ceremony at the University of Haifa where she is receiving an honorary doctorate, Hayut says: “More than 76 years ago, Israel inscribed on its banner a commitment to the principles of liberty, freedom of religion, conscience, justice, and social and political equality for all its citizens. To uphold such a regime in practice — not merely as empty words on the Declaration of Independence — the state required a comprehensive system of checks and balances to ensure that the majority elected to govern would not concentrate unlimited power in its hands.”

אסתר חיות מנבאת: "מהלכים הרי-אסון במערכת" | הנאום המלאhttps://t.co/1uApSXCqfk

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“Such a system of checks and balances was established and includes institutions such as the state comptroller, the attorney general, the judiciary, academia and the media. Those who, ostensibly in the name of democracy, undermine the institutional and professional independence of these bodies misuse democracy while cynically exploiting democratic tools. Such actions erode the anchors of democracy and the democratic regime as a whole.”

During the ceremony, university president Prof. Gur Alroey also criticizes the government over its judicial overhaul efforts, saying the judiciary “is under an attack unprecedented since the state’s founding.”