Protest leader: ‘The only help will come from the heroes in the Supreme Court’

Eliad Shraga, who heads the Movement for Quality Government watchdog, tells The Times of Israel that he does not expect change to come from the Knesset. Rather he hopes that the protest he helped bring to the Knesset’s doors today will end up in the Supreme Court.

“From the Knesset I don’t expect anything,” Shraga says before taking the protest stage, saying the legislation will pass its Knesset readings to become a law.

“The only help will come from the heroes in the Supreme Court,” he adds, nodding his head across the Rose Garden to the court’s Jerusalem home.

Shraga says that despite the tremendous public outcry, he does not think the coalition will stop its legislative process, calling it “the danger of dictatorship.”

Shraga similarly dismissed President Isaac Herzog’s principles for compromise, saying “I don’t think his proposal is realistic, especially with everything connected to the selection of judges and reasonableness.” The leader of the good governance watchdog also slammed Herzog for “his readiness to cede the override clause without knowing” the full conditions under which it would operate.

“The first thing we want is a constitution, then a bill of rights,” Shraga says, arguing that other reforms should only follow that.