Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would enter “uncharted territory” if the High Court of Justice struck down the Knesset’s passage of the first leg of his government’s judicial reform plan.
“We will go into unchartered territory, and I would like to believe that they would not do that,” Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN on Thursday, the latest in a series of at least three interviews he gave to major US news outlets.
He spoke just three days after the Knesset approved the reasonableness standard bill, which narrowed the Supreme Court’s powers to review government policies.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Netanyahu if he would abide by a Supreme Court decision to dismiss the Knesset’s passage of that law as illegal.
No straight answer from Netanyahu
“I hope we do not get to that,” Netanyahu said, as he refused to confirm if he would respect such a court decision, stating instead that Israeli would enter “uncharted territory and I would like to believe that they [the court] won’t do that.”
COALITION MEMBERS take a selfie after the Law to Cancel the Reasonableness Standard passed on Monday in the Knesset. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)He appeared to suggest that the court did not have the authority to conduct that kind of review.
Although Israel does not have a constitution, he compared the Knesset’s passage of the reasonableness standards law to a constitutional amendment.
“We’re all subject to the rule of law. The Prime Minister is subject to the rule of law. The Knesset, our parliament … judges are subject to the law, everyone is subject to the law.”
“The closest we have to a constitution are basic laws, that is what we are dealing with. What we are talking about is a potential situation where in American terms, the US Supreme Court would take a constitutional amendment and say that it’s unconstitutional, that is the kind of spiral you are talking about and I hope we don’t get to that.”
Opponents of the Knesset’s vote earlier this week warned that it is the first step in a judicial overhaul program that would transform the country into a dictatorship. The protests against the plan have rocked and divided the country since Netanyahu came into power at the end of December.
Netanyahu, in his interviews with CNN, ABC, and NPR defended his plan as a step that would strengthen Israeli democracy.
“We’re not trying to weaken the Supreme Court we are trying to bring balance between the three branches of government, which is the essence of democracy,” he said.
“We want an independent court, but not an all-powerful court,” Netanyahu said.
In his interview with ABC, he described the judicial change as “minor” and that opposition to it was “silly.”
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