Mandelblit says court overhaul will upend system of governance, rejects compromise

Former attorney general Avichai Mandelblit says the government’s proposals to remake the judicial system are not a simple reform but rather a fundamental change in Israel’s system of governance that must be rejected.

Mandelblit tells an audience at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv that negotiations over the contours of the legislation should be preconditioned on a total halt to “this legislative abomination,” employing some of the strongest language yet used by a former top judicial official against the government’s plans.

“So long as these proposals advance, there’s nothing to talk about and it won’t be right to talk to them,” he says, seemingly backing the opposition’s demand for a freeze ahead of any compromise talks.

“If they pass, even one of them, there won’t be anything to talk about and we’ll rely… on the attorney general and High Court to defend the bastion,” of democracy, he says.

He says his successor Gali Baharav-Miara and the court don’t just have the right, but the obligation, to strike down “any law that will void Israel’s liberal democratic system of governance.”