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Israel’s right -wing government has adopted a controversial law to allow the biggest politicians in judicial appointments, at a time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in court for corruption and clashes with Supreme Court judges.
Opposition leader Benny Gantz said the law – which would not come into force until after the next elections – would severely reduce judicial independence and bring Israel “on the eve of the civil war”.
Netanyahu raised the draft law as an attack on the “rule of bureaucrats” and “deep state”, echoing the language of his political ally his president Donald Trump.
The law aims to remove power from “a small group of bureaucrats fighting to preserve the levers of power and authority in the country,” Netanyahu said. “In democracy, people are sovereign.”
Israeli media described the results of the ardent debate throughout the night as “Netanyahu’s Judicial Punction”, and said it was the first time in Israel’s 76-year history that politicians would control the appointment of judges.
The mass was part of the broad court reforms driven by the Netanyahu government for two years, which caused widespread protests and were banned from the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
The opposition pledged to overturn the law if it won the next election, which is expected at the end of 2026.
“The Israeli government has just approved a law with one intention – to ensure that judges become subject to the will of the politicians,” opposition leaders said in a joint statement. “In the next government, we will make sure that the law is repealed, returning the election of judges to a fair and professional committee.”
With its delayed presentation and the complex structure, the law is seen more as a manifestation of force – and the future goal – from the right coalition of Netanyahu, rather than a majority adjustment of the Israeli judicial appointment process.
In addition to other smaller changes, the law will change the members of the Nine Persons and Veton the Judgment Committee to the government and the opposition, injecting politics in a process so far led by professionals, including the Association of Bar.
Netanyahu and his allies, who have been fighting the courts and the legal system for years, have been planning more reforms, but they are not far from becoming law.
Netanyahu has brought the country on the eve of a constitutional crisis in recent weeks trying to ignite internal intelligence chief Ronen Bar, who has investigated claims that officials in the prime minister’s internal circle had financial relations with Qatar. The Netanyahu’s office has called the charges “false news”.
The prime minister has also begun the process of dismissal of the Prosecutor General, starting with a vote of distrust against Gali Baharav-Miara, who was appointed in 2021 by a previous right-wing government.
At the same time, his corruption trial, which he spent years painting as a witch hunt driven by liberal prosecutors and judges, is continuing.
The Netanyahu coalition, which has been accumulated in recent weeks with the return of the far -right Jewish power party, passed the draft law on judicial appointments with ease, indecisive by about 71,000 opposition changes and protests outside parliament.
The short period of national unity brought about by the October 7 attack has given way to major protests on Netanyahu’s renovation attacks on Gaza and abandoning a ceasefire with Hamas – leaving Israeli hostages still captured by the militant group – and the return of judicial reforms.
