Many of my subscribers and Twitter followers asked me in recent weeks to explain the judicial reform proposal, after having seen all kinds of headlines about it being the death knell of Israeli democracy.
Several Jewish organizations have also asked me to speak about the judicial reform and other political news from Israel, and I thought that sharing one of the talks I gave recently would help people understand the situation. Everyone can watch the beginning, but the full video is for paid subscribers.
Thank you to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Tidewater for allowing me to post this video.
An additional element that was reported after I gave this zoom talk is that President Isaac Herzog proposed a compromise between the coalition and opposition as follows:
Pause the legislative process on judicial reform for 14 days
Negotiations without preconditions, conducted by an agreed-upon committee
If the negotiations fail, the legislative process can resume. If it succeeds, the agreed-upon version will be brought to a vote.
There’s another point that I forgot to bring up in the video. In budget debates in the Knesset, there is something called a “goat.” The goat is like that Hassidic story about the poor man whose rabbi tells him to bring all of his animals into the house - once you remove the goats, you’re relieved. In other words, the government is known to propose things that they know go too far and the Knesset will remove, so that the things they really want in the budget will stay. I think that parts of this judicial reform are goats.
Also: Though I didn’t have a good answer when I was asked for one, I have a positive headline from Israel! Progress on normalization with Sudan is excellent news.
Last week, I announced an “Ask Me Anything,” in which anyone could comment with a question, and I would answer for paid subscribers.
I admit failure; I only received one question. I will answer it behind a paywall, as promised. It’s in this post because it’s related to judicial reform.
Next month, I think I’ll reverse it and see how it goes: Only paid subscribers will be able to ask questions, but everyone can read the answers.
Here is the question:
Some writers are trying to imply that the new proposed reforms in the judiciary will change our democracy to something like now in Hungary. Have you any comment on that please? I am not sure about facts on Hungary.
My answer:
I admit that I am not an expert on Hungary, either, but I did some research after reading this question.
It seems that the reforms in Hungary were meant to target and remove judges of a specific ideological bent from the court by lowering the retirement age.
The Israeli judicial reform does not seek to remove serving judges nor shorten their terms. The activist judges can remain in their seats until retirement age - though they would be stymied in their activism if all the elements of the proposed reform are legislated as-is (an unlikely scenario, as I say in the video).
“Poland and Hungary are focused on who the judges are, while Israel is more focused on what they can do,” Owen Alterman of i24 News explains.
There are also complaints about a new lack of transparency in how judges are selected in Hungary. In Israel, the Judicial Selection Committee is not transparent; that is not something new that happened as a result of judicial reform.
There have also been concerns about political meddling in the courts in Hungary. The complaints seem to be about direct attempts at influencing the outcomes of court cases, as opposed to changing the way the courts operate, which is what Israel’s judicial reform seeks to do.
All about Israel's proposed judicial reform