Leaders of the protests against the government’s planned reforms of the judicial system called on citizens to launch a general strike on Monday outside of the Knesset, where the coalition is expected to vote for the first time on a section of the reform.
Monday’s strike, which a number of protest leaders announced together in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, will come alongside protests nationwide – in addition to the weekly Saturday night protests in Tel Aviv and many other cities. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel said it would move its Saturday night protest to Monday.
The leaders who spoke at the conference included former defense minister and chief of staff Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, as well as leaders of groups of lawyers, doctors, economists, women and students, each of whom explained the reform’s negative effect on their respective field or group.
“Netanyahu’s plan to fast-track his dictatorship laws will face the people of Israel, more determined than ever to maintain its independence. We call on citizens to announce already today to their employers that they will not work on Monday and will take to the streets. This is the most important struggle in the country’s history – the struggle for Israel’s independence as Jewish and democratic,” the leaders said.
Ya’alon called the government “illegal,” arguing that a “black flag” hung over its reforms due to the criminal cases against the prime minister and his “intention to turn Israel into a dictatorship.”
Movement for Quality Government chairman Eliad Shraga said earlier on Tuesday, “We are calling on every citizen who is anxious about the fate and existence of the State of Israel to drop everything and come on Monday in order to stop the destruction and demolition of democracy with our bodies.
“As we warned, Netanyahu and his partners are starting to actually dismantle the Zionist vision. We will stand in front of the Knesset and show them that the Jewish people, who have dreamed of independence and freedom for 2,000 years, will not be silent when a bunch of corrupt people and criminals rob them of their freedom once again.”
Vote on judicial reform set to take place on Monday
Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party) announced on Tuesday after the protest leaders’ press conference that Wednesday’s debate would begin at 8 a.m., which is uncharacteristically early, and that the first vote on the reform could take place already on Wednesday. Rothman presumably did this to embarrass the protest leaders by holding the vote before they could launch their strike.
This vote would be for the bill to head to the Knesset plenum for its first reading. Once it passes the first reading, it will return to the committee to be prepared for its second and third readings in the plenum, after which it could become law.
The law currently being debated in the committee is an amendment to the Basic Law: The Judiciary. It includes a number of provisions, including one that will change the makeup of the judicial appointments committee so that the government will control all judicial appointments, and another that will limit the High Court of Justice’s ability to strike down a law, and completely bar it from striking down a Basic Law.
The committee debated on Tuesday this last provision – whether or not the High Court should have the right to hear and rule on appeals against Basic Laws.
The committee’s legal adviser, Gur Bligh, said a basic problem with this provision was that any coalition can legally pass any legislation as a Basic Law and thus make it immune to judicial review, as the law does not include special criteria for legislation of Basic Laws. Bligh proposed, therefore, that this provision should come as a package along with a law that demands certain special conditions for a law to become a Basic Law, such as a special parliamentary majority.
Rothman countered that the court had decided on its own that it had the power to intervene even in Basic Laws based on two doctrines, the “unconstitutional constitutional amendment” doctrine, which posits that the High Court can strike down a constitutional amendment that violates the constitution itself; and the “abuse of constitutional power” doctrine, which is that the High Court can strike down a constitutional amendment if it was being used for personal or temporary benefit of a specific coalition.
The court overstepped its line by giving itself this power, Rothman argued, and therefore his proposal was merely meant to bring the court back to its proper place.