JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The Knesset will vote Monday on a bill to curb judicial review of the “reasonableness” of elected officials’ decisions, as part of the government’s broader plan to implement judicial reforms.
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The government’s current bill would prohibit the courts from using the reasonableness doctrine to review decisions made by the cabinet, government ministers and unspecified “other elected officials, as determined by law,” but would continue to allow the use of the doctrine for decisions made by professional civil servants in government ministries and agencies.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered justice minister Levin and the head of the Knesset committee sponsoring the bill to “soften” the language so as not to shield city halls from petition based on reasonability, the bill’s language has not so far been changed.
The bill is being rushed through the legislative process in order to be finalized into law by the close of the Knesset’s summer session on July 30. Monday’s vote is its first of three required floor votes.
Although the parliamentary coalition is expected to easily clear the bill through its first reading, the anti-reform protest movement has promised huge national disruptive demonstrations on Tuesday, including blocking roads and flooding Ben Gurion Airport and its internal access roads with protesters.
Parliamentary opposition members and experts invited to the Knesset Law committee claimed that the coalition was advancing the bill as a committee bill, rather than a government-sponsored bill, an unusual choice for an amendment to one of Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws.
As an update to Basic Law: The Judiciary, the bill normally would be sponsored through the Justice Ministry. However, this route would take more time and would open the bill to the attorney general’s scrutiny.
Should the bill clear its first reading on Monday, Rothman was expected to convene the committee on Tuesday to begin preparations for the second and third (and final) readings.
Reasonableness is a judicial test that allows courts to strike down government and administrative decisions seen as having not taken into account all the relevant considerations of a particular issue, or having not given the correct weight to those considerations — even if they do not violate any particular law or contradict other administrative rulings.
Proponents of limiting the courts’ use of the reasonableness doctrine say that it has enabled arbitrary striking down of executive decisions by the judiciary. Critics say the test is a vital bulwark against government abuse.
The coalition has claimed that the opposition was close to reaching agreements on limiting reasonableness as part of the sides’ now-frozen talks, and the opposition says it never made any agreements and would not give piecemeal consent to judicial changes.
The Attorney General’s Office has criticized the bill, saying that it opened the door to “arbitrary” decision-making.
“What stands before us is a green light to the government, the prime minister, ministers, and other elected officials — and to them, only — to make arbitrary decisions that ignore relevant facts, necessary considerations, or give extremely exaggerated weight to the importance of negligible considerations,” Deputy Attorney General for Administrative Law Gil Limon told the committee two weeks ago.
Not a word about the INSURRECTION that took placer today when protestors today stormed the capitol building better known as the knesset. Yes its the same as Jan 6. But you won’t hear a word about it form the fake news.
It seems like they just want like we have in the USA democracy. Lawmakers have the right to legislate laws and the court can’t overturn it. in fact when Roe v wade was overthrown the judges said that its aup to lawmakers to decide its fate and not the courts. Thats demcoarcy when elected lawmakers decide.