Knesset committee begins voting on reservations to ‘reasonableness’ bill

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee begins voting on the more than 27,000 reservations submitted by opposition MKs against the coalition’s bill to severely limit the courts’ use of the reasonableness standard of judicial review, following a marathon 19-hour committee session explaining those reservations.

Due to the unprecedented number of reservations – which are essentially proposed amendments to a bill – votes will be conducted on batches of 20 reservations to expedite the process, in line with the approval of the Knesset legal adviser.

It is expected that voting will take until Wednesday to complete and it is unlikely that any of the opposition’s reservations will be accepted.

The committee will then vote on the bill itself in order to pass it to the Knesset plenum for its second and third readings which would pass the legislation into law.

Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz of the opposition says at the opening of the voting that the committee process was flawed since not all relevant ministerial professionals had been able to address the committee, and said that those who were heard were ignored.

“The bill is disproportionate, extreme, and does damage to all aspects of the country but in particular causes legal danger to IDF soldiers and the defense system because of the damage done to [the status of the country’s] gatekeepers,” says Segalovitz