After New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman called Tuesday for President Biden to intervene in Israel’s judicial reforms, claiming that they will negatively impact US regional security concerns, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial supporting exactly those reforms.
The article explained that “Israel’s Supreme Court has more power than America’s but without the democratic checks. Unbound by any constitution, and loosed from requirements of standing and justiciability, Israel’s court strikes down laws that it finds merely ‘unreasonable’ which can cover most anything. Israel’s court even has a veto on the appointment of new justices, in contrast to the U.S. where the President and Senate share the appointment power.”
The paper cited the example of the court’s revoking Deri’s appointment as minister, despite the fact that no law was cited to keep him out of the government. The tendentious claim that the appointment was “unreasonable in the extreme” was an attempt to deprive voters of their democratic rights. The article conceded that “the court may be making the sounder judgment on character, but in a democracy that decision is left to voters and the politicians they elect. By vetoing the appointment anyway, the court interferes with the power of the people to pick their leaders, via a legislature that makes the law and an executive who fills out the cabinet.”
The paper concluded that “with this action, the court has provided clear evidence of its overreach, making the best argument for the Israeli right’s judicial reforms.”
The article also cited the fear that the court “will next reject as unreasonable any reforms to the court itself,” and this could lead to a constitutional crisis in Israel but stressed that Israeli democracy is “resilient” and would know how to attenuate the court’s overweening power.
