War between Israel and Hamas: Early signs indicate Israel may avoid a wartime confrontation over a court ruling
The timing of Monday’s unprecedented Supreme Court ruling has made it all the more polarizing, critics say, not only because it came during a brutal war in Gaza, but also because a delay of a few weeks might have resulted in a different outcome can lead.
The recent retirement of two judges, including outgoing Chief Justice Esther Hayut, imposed a mid-January deadline to publish a decision, after which they would no longer have been eligible to participate.
The hearing took place on September 12, when the full panel of fifteen judges heard a case together for the first time in Israeli history – a measure of the fateful nature of the debate. They weighed the validity of a law intended to curb their own power, giving the government more freedom to act – part of a judicial overhaul plan that had sparked months of mass protests, creating deep divisions in Israeli society came to light.
A month later, both Chief Justice Hayut and Judge Anat Baron turned 70, the mandatory retirement age for judges. By law, they had only three months after retirement to make a decision.
In the meantime, as the court recognized in its ruling, the deadly Hamas-led attack took place on October 7, severely shocking Israel and sparking a war that still rages today.
“The reality of our lives has changed beyond recognition,” the judges wrote, “and since then we have been engaged in a difficult and determined struggle against murderous terrorist organizations.”
Last week, in an unprecedented move, a draft of the ruling was leaked to a local broadcaster, tipping off the nation that the court was planning to strike down the law, although it was unclear whether that would in any way affect the timing of the Monday announcement.
The controversial law remained on the books, preventing judges from using the standard of reasonableness to review government decisions, and given the looming deadline, the judges said, they went ahead with the ruling. By the narrowest margin, 8 to 7, the court struck down the law.
Chief Justice Hayut and Justice Baron were in the majority, suggesting that without them the court would have upheld the law. No new judges have yet been chosen to fill the court.
Monday’s decision also anticipated any possible government attempt to delay the court’s ruling. The leader of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party that is a key partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing governing coalition, had begun promoting a bill to delay the publication of the ruling by several months, removing the two retiring judges from the bench. decision was reached. .
Shas issued a statement late Monday expressing his disappointment that his plan failed, “and the court rushed to publish the decision.”
Opponents of the government’s efforts to curb the court’s authority applauded Monday’s decision.
“The Supreme Court today ruled that the government and its leader cannot act with extreme unreasonableness. This is a historic day,” the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, the main sponsor of the law, said in a statement.
Supporters of the government’s judicial review plan lamented the timing of the ruling to allow for the inclusion of the opinions of Chief Justice Hayut and Judge Baron.
“In what may be remembered as one of the most unfortunate actions in the Court’s history, the Supreme Court, in the midst of a war, hastened to make a divisive decision – simply in favor of two retired Supreme Court justices who lost their personal stamps on Israeli jurisprudence,” Prof. Moshe Koppel, chairman of the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative and libertarian research group that supported the judicial review, said in a statement.
Israel’s Supreme Court has long been considered a bastion of the country’s liberal elite, but more conservatives have joined the ranks during the past years.
It was a “small and vulnerable majority” that ruled Monday, said Yedidia Stern, an Israeli law professor and president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, an independent research group, which was involved in efforts last year to reach a compromise on the government’s plans . judicial plan. “Two of these judges are no longer president of the court.”
Without them, he added, the court would “probably have a majority taking the opposite view.”
Aaron Bokserman reporting contributed.