Likud minister urges defiance of High Court over media overhaul law freeze

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi calls on the government to defy the High Court of Justice after it earlier today froze parts of his sweeping media overhaul law passed last week in the Knesset, insisting the court “has no authority to suspend or strike down laws” and declaring that the legislation “remains fully in force.”

Announcing that he will boycott the legal proceedings, Karhi argues that an order issued “without authority has no legal validity” and says he will not participate “as long as there is an outrageous interim order that arbitrarily nullifies a law passed by the Knesset with the stroke of a pen.”

Karhi also calls on Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana to pass a special parliamentary resolution rebuking the court and vows that, if the right wins the October election, it will complete its judicial overhaul by appointing a new attorney general, a state attorney and a majority on the High Court, while reversing what he calls the court’s “absurd” judicial doctrines.

Karhi has in the past vowed to defy other High Court rulings.

Other senior coalition ministers also seize on the ruling as a pitch to voters, with October 27 elections looming. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir accuses the justices of “trampling the will of the people’s elected representatives” and says the next right-wing government will “clean out the stables of the judicial system and dismantle the rule of the deep state.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich notes that the justice who froze the Knesset legislation was also behind the temporary injunction stopping implementation of  the government’s law halting the arrests of draft dodgers. Such “utter madness” shows the High Court “has completely lost all restraint in its war against the Knesset and the government of the national camp.”

He warns right-wing values will be increasingly trampled unless it wins the election and is able to complete its project to overhaul the judiciary.