Israel Supreme Court strikes down key law in judicial reform, amid controversy
- Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to overhaul the legal system had sparked nationwide protests and a deep rift within the country
- Eight of 15 justices ruled in favour of nullifying the law, which took away some of the top court’s power to quash decisions by ministers and government
Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down a highly disputed law passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government that rolled back some of the high court’s power and sparked months of nationwide protests.
The law was part of a broader judicial overhaul proposed by Netanyahu and his coalition of religious and nationalist partners which caused a deep rift in Israel and concern over the country’s democratic principles among Western allies.
Monday’s court decision could test the cohesion of an emergency government formed to manage the war against Hamas, which includes hardline proponents like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and critics of the judicial overhaul such as centrist Benny Gantz and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Smotrich dismissed the decision as “extreme and divisive”, echoing the bitter divisions that marked Israeli politics in the months before the deadly Hamas rampage through southern Israel on October 7.
The new legislation brought before the court had removed one, but not all, of the tools the Supreme Court has for quashing government and ministers’ decisions. It took away the court’s ability to void such decisions that it deemed “unreasonable”.
Twelve of 15 justices ruled that it was within the court’s parameters to strike down quasi-constitutional “basic laws”.