Levin accuses Supreme Court chief of being a political voice of the opposition

Justice Minister Yariv Levin responds to a fiery speech from Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut, accusing her of being politically aligned with the opposition.

Levin launches his own unprecedented attack on Hayut and on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.

“It turns out there’s another party in Israel — a party that didn’t run in the elections two months ago, a party that places itself about the Knesset, above the public referendum,” he says.

“What we heard this evening comes straight from the ‘black flag protests,’ it’s the same political agenda,” he says referring to the anti-corruption protesters that regularly target Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It’s the same cry to set the streets on fire.

“We didn’t hear statesmanship [from Hayut and Gali Baharav-Miara]. We didn’t hear neutrality. We didn’t hear a balanced legal stance. We heard the words of politicians, stirring up demonstrators.”

He accuses Hayut of aligning with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and former Meretz MK Yair Golan.

“This is the best proof that the legal system has lost its way,” Levin says.

“There are no properly functioning Western democracies in which judges choose themselves and interfere with basic laws on their own accord,” Levin says.

He acknowledges that democracy is not only the rule of the majority, and that it requires protecting the rights of minorities — and says this imperative “is at the heart of the reform I presented.” He says his reforms do enable the High Court to strike down legislation — though in practice this capacity is radically circumscribed in his planned law — and do give justices “appropriate representation” on the committee that selects judges.

He then accuses Hayut and the judges of being responsible for imposing the “tyranny of the minority, imposing its values on the majority.”

“Rule by judges is the opposite of a properly functioning democracy,” he says.

His reforms, he claims, will “restore public faith” in the judicial system.

Levin says he is “committed to dialogue and wide-ranging discussion with all in order to achieve the most balanced and best result. Millions of Israelis, and me among them, are determined to restore the balance between the branches of government and restore faith in the Israeli judicial system.”