Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) resigned on Wednesday to protest a demand from Israel’s Supreme Court earlier in the week that he immediately convene the Knesset plenum to elect his replacement.
Supreme Court President Esther Hayut wrote in her ruling that “The refusal by the Knesset Speaker seeks to undermine the democratic process, and clearly undermines the status of the Knesset as an independent authority. In the circumstances created, the Court shall intervene to prevent the government’s system from being violated.”
Hayut is widely viewed as seeking to strengthen Blue & White leader Benny Gantz in coalition negotiations with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud).
Gantz was unable to form a government, despite a 61 lawmaker majority telling President Reuven Rivlin that they would accept a coalition led by him, and will likely now be splitting from the other factions comprising Blue & White in order to join a Likud-led coalition.
Edelstein sharply criticized Hayut’s ruling as an attempt to undermine Netanyahu.
“The Supreme Court’s decision is not based on the how the law is worded,” said Edelstein to the Knesset on Wednesday. “But according to a one-sided and extremist interpretation.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision contradicts the Knesset protocol… The Supreme Court’s decision is gross and audacious interference on the part of the judicial authority in the affairs of the elected legislative authority… The Supreme Court’s decision harms, in an unprecedented fashion, the sovereignty of the nation and the sovereignty of the Knesset. The Supreme Court’s decision undermines the basis of Israeli democracy.”
By law, Yuli Edelstein should have had full discretion in this matter. According to the Knesset Basic Law, the Knesset Speaker can continue to hold office until a new government is sworn in following an election. A caretaker prime minister, in order to effectively function, requires an incumbent Speaker by the principle of continuity. The Knesset’s Articles of Association state that the Knesset Speaker is responsible for the parliament’s management.
Member of Knesset Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) issued even harsher words earlier in the week, saying that “Supreme Court justices have systematically eliminated the democratic regime in recent years, and the principle of separation of powers, which is one of the cornerstones of a regime in determining when the legislature will hold a meeting and what will be on the agenda. Whoever thinks the democratic regime is important should make every effort to stop their arrogance.”
“This is the watershed,” he continued. “The Supreme Court justices must remember that they are going with some of the people, but more than half of the nation is against them, and ultimately who will rule.”
In an interview with Reshet Kan Bet on Tuesday, Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) explained that the Supreme Court “is acting as if it owns the country,” thereby harming the basics of Israel’s democracy, and the separation of the various authorities, by taking over the Knesset and attempting to manage its functioning.
In Israel, there are three separate parts of government: The executive authority, which carries out the laws, the judicial authority (the court system), and the legislative authority (the Knesset). Supreme importance is placed on the separation of these three branches of government.
Levin also emphasized that Yuli Edelstein is acting within his authority, and just like the Knesset cannot force the Supreme Court to hold a specific hearing on a given day, the opposite is also not possible.
“The Knesset Speaker said very clearly that the meeting will take place as it states in the protocol, meaning, until it is brought for government approval. That is the reason this arrangement was written in the protocol, and this is exactly the authority of the Knesset Speaker. The Supreme Court cannot take over the Knesset,” he said.
“Were the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice to come to the Knesset building together with the court guards, and come into the meeting, take the Speaker’s gavel, and run the meeting, I assume there would be a huge uproar, and everyone would understand what is happening.
“With all due respect to Chief Justice [Esther] Hayut, she needs to involve herself in what the court has authority over. She has no authority over how the Knesset is managed. The court cannot manage the Knesset and replace the Knesset Speaker. Unfortunately, the one who is leading us to this [anarchy] is the court.”
Since Aharon Barak’s ascension over the Supreme Court in the early 1990s, it has been weaponized by Israel’s westernized ruling class and consistently takes an activist position regarding the judiciary’s role. Assuming the right of judicial supremacy, it frequently strikes down laws passed by the Knesset and forces the government to adhere to its rulings.
While Israel has yet to draft an actual constitution, the Knesset has passed a series of Basic Laws which Barak and his followers – including Hayut – have treated as the nation’s de facto constitution in order to assert dominance over the Israel’s democratically elected legislative branch.
The anti-democratic nature of Israel’s judiciary has become increasingly transparent to the public in recent years as the court worked tirelessly to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Given the fact that Netanyahu’s government has been responsibly focused on guiding Israel through the global COVID-19 crisis, Hayut may have picked the wrong fight this time around.
Despite coming across as a mild-mannered politician, the Ukrainian-born Edelstein can be a tenacious fighter when his conscience is aroused. This is a man who courageously stared down the Soviet Union over the right to publicly express his Jewishness and move home to Israel in the 1980s, when he was imprisoned for three years as punishment for teaching the Hebrew language.
In a Yisrael Hayom interview following his resignation, Yuli Edelstein said that “There’s no doubt that my move is a precedent, but everything that happens is a precedent. The Supreme Court has long taken control of the executive branch, which is clear. Now there is also an attempt to take control of the legislature and its procedure. These are things that have never been seen before.”
“For the 24 years I’ve been in the political system, including seven years as Knesset Speaker, I’ve refused any Supreme Court involvement in political decisions, and so I did this time. It’s true that this is the first time anyone’s said no to them, but I did this as the Speaker of the Knesset, and as the one who maintains the status and independence of the Knesset, not as a private person. What I’ve done doesn’t mean that now every citizen may say no to a judicial decision.”
“This isn’t a traffic offense,” Edelstein added. “I’ve acted here as the responsible adult, according to [former Prime Minister] Menaḥem Begin’s legacy that ‘there will be no civil war.’ I didn’t take it to the end but resigned. I can’t be forced to do things that I think are dangerous to democracy and contrary to the dictates of my conscience. I hope the Supreme Court will still grant me this right to resign for reasons of conscience.”
Yuli Edelstein further responded to accusations that his conduct violated the principle of majority rule.
“The Knesset has rules of procedure, there’s a constitution and there are by-laws. Do you know how many times I’ve stopped most of the last governments, my own party, when they wanted to steamroll the minority?! I followed the rules and the judges didn’t present any legal argument that contradicted this. They were disrespectful towards the Knesset and towards the institution of the Knesset Speaker. They didn’t read the opinion of the lawyers who represented me – roughly 25 minutes after it was submitted they already handed a pre-prepared decision.”
Following Edelstein’s resignation, the judiciary swung into action. Despite the fact that the speaker, according to Israeli law, would be anyway switched in 48 hours, the Supreme Court needlessly ruled that a vote must be held immediately to replace him.
Hayut had to issue its ruling for an immediate vote in order to demonstrate once again that the court’s rulings have the power to negate parliamentary procedures – as if her objective is the neutering of Israel’s legislative and executive branches, destroying all checks and balances in the nation’s political system.
Regardless of what coalition ultimately takes shape, it’s becoming clear to more Israelis that the justice system is not a justice system but an abusive ideological oligarchy steamrolling its narrow elitist agenda through Israel’s political system. Due to the shameless overreach of the Supreme Court itself, more and more Israelis have come to understand that limitations must be placed on the judiciary’s power in order to protect the future of Israeli democracy.
