Judges challenge Knesset lawyer, who admits flaws but says overhaul law mustn’t be voided

Yitzhak Bart, an attorney representing the Knesset in the High Court of Justice hearing on the reasonableness law, acknowledges that the legislative process was hurried and had some flaws, but argues that these are nowhere near the threshold that justifies nullifying it.

“It would have been appropriate for the discussions to go on longer, it would have been appropriate to give an expression to some of the [opposition] remarks at the committee,” Bart admits.

Justice Yechiel Kasher asks Bart how he can argue that the source for the Knesset’s right to legislate Basic Laws is the Declaration of Independence, while at the same time not viewing as mandatory that same document’s mandating that a full constitution  be legislated, which hasn’t happened in 75 years.

Bart later argues that the Knesset “didn’t want to exempt the government from the obligation to act with reasonableness, it could have done that through a regular law, but instead it reduced the court’s use of the judicial standard — while not eradicating the obligation to act with reasonableness.”

Multiple justices ask Bart how this reconciles with eliminating the justice system’s ability to enforce the resonableness standard in relation to government and ministerial decisions.

“Who ensures that [ministers] in fact act with reasonableness? You agree that there is a legal obligation, but say that there can be no judge [to enforce it],” court president Esther Hayut says critically.