After six months of street protests, parliamentary maneuvering, compromise talks and increasingly urgent pleas from the White House, Israeli lawmakers are set to vote on the first part of the government’s sweeping plan to weaken the power of the country’s courts on Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who left hospital on Monday morning after having been fitted with a pacemaker, has been pressing on with his plans for the judicial system overhaul even as protests against them show no signs on easing.
He and his allies call the measures “reforms” and say they are required to rebalance powers between the courts, lawmakers and the government. Opponents of the plan call it a “coup” and say it threatens to turn Israel into a dictatorship by removing the most significant checks on government actions.
Netanyahu was forced to pause the legislative process earlier this year in the face of widespread protests and international pressure.
The demonstrations continued on Monday. Huge crowds of people waving flags took over the area around the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, despite the sweltering heat. The protesters were met with police water cannons, fences and barbed wire as they attempted to block access to the building.
The Knesset begun discussing the first part of the reform on Sunday, with so many lawmakers requesting time to speak that the discussion was scheduled to last 26 hours.
Deep divisions
Monday’s vote is on the so-called reasonableness bill, which would strip the Supreme Court of the power to declare government decisions unreasonable. It could be voted into law in on Monday evening.
Other elements of the judicial overhaul would give the far-right coalition government more control of the appointment of judges, and would remove independent legal advisers from government ministries. Those bills have not advanced as far in the legislative process at the reasonableness bill.
The Israel Bar Association is already preparing a legal challenge to the bill, the lawyers’ group said Sunday.
Its executive, the Bar Council, is holding an emergency meeting to approve the decision to petition the Supreme Court to cancel the reasonableness law if it passes on Monday, the Bar said.
The Bar is also warning it will shut down “as an act of protest against the anti-democratic legislative process,” the statement said. That means the Bar Association would not provide professional services to its members, not that lawyers would go on strike.