High Court justice shuts down Netanyahu’s lawyer: The opposition is not conceptual

Defending the coalition agreement’s stripping of the opposition’s official representative in the Committee for Appointing judges, Netanyahu’s lawyer Michael Rabilo tells the High Court that “the opposition is a conceptual concept” and will in effect have a place on the committee via a Blue and White representative.

The coalition deal sees right-wing Derech Eretz MK Zvi Hauser sitting on the committee instead of an MK from the opposition. Netanyahu is believed to prefer Hauser, as while he is not a Likud MK, he has a more conservative approach to judicial appointments than the average likely opposition lawmaker from Meretz, Yesh Atid or the Joint List.

Justice Neal Hendel shuts down Rabilo, telling him, “just as the government is not conceptual, so too the opposition is not. It exists. In law and in the Knesset.”

— Raoul Wootliff