By Ted Belman
JPOST reports,
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in private conversations on Tuesday that a draft law mandating that a Knesset committee hold hearings approving appointments to the Supreme Court is against the country’s status quo and not in keeping with the coalition’s guidelines.
Netanyahu directed Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, and coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) to remove the proposal from the agenda.
“A law like this will not pass in a government I head,” he said.
OK, so Bibi thinks the bill is against the status quo. Huh? Isn’t every Bill against the status quo? What kind of an argument is this?
But Bibi went further,
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“The independence of the judiciary is above everything. I view as paramount the separation of powers and the rule of law.”
This really riles me. While Bibi is stressing the separation of powers, the US stresses “checks and balances”. Nobody there has unfettered power. Nor should they. Yet that is inherent in Bibi’s notion that the Court should have “independence”. But this is a limited concept. It should be independent in the sense that it should suffer no interference in its decision making process. But it is not independent in the sense that it must follow the law of the land. That law restrains it.
Unfortunately the Court itself violates such law when it usurps the legislative process for itself. This Court is notorious for creating law rather than enforcing law as it was written. If for some reason the law is not clear or violates other law, then the Court should correct the matter by sending the law back to the Knesset. For Bibi to suggest that the Court should have the right to do this is outrageous.
But all that has nothing to do with the appointment of judges. In the US all proposed judges for the Supreme Court must be vetted and approved by the Senate. How does that differ from the proposed law that Bibi has squelched?
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Channel 2 reported that Netanyahu’s position on the matter was heavily influenced by Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein, who met Netanyahu and his advisers on Monday and said that the law went too far. According to the report, Weinstein said the proposal was a “bad law” that upset the balance of power between governmental branches, politicized the judicial system and would harm the public’s confidence in the judiciary.
This is just too much. The Bill is intended to “upset the balance of power” as the Left carries too much weight and isn’t representative of society at large. This legislation would redress, not upset, the balance of power. Furthermore, the judicial system is “politicized” and must be more representative of the values of society rather than of the left only.
In the U.S. it is common practice for conservatives and liberals to appoint conservative or liberal judges respectively. Overtime, the Court alternates between dominance by conservative judges and liberal judges. How much more balanced can one get?
But the worst is to allow the Judiciary to perpetuate itself by appointing only like-minded judges.
Netanyahu’s position on this issue is completely nonsensical. Virtually every western democracy has public vetting of SC nominees by the legislative branch. The current system in Israel is anti-democratic.
What do you expect from a right wing fraud like Pipi Not-a-Yehud? He’s an eloquent fork tongued speaker who talks right wing while acting like the worst leftists. Israel’s judicial needs to be reined as does Netanyahu when he destroys Jewish homes while giving land stealing Bedouin Arabs the land they stole.
’bout a week ago I resigned from the LIKUD CC and the party itself.
Never felt better about politics, in particular the one of the make believe “right” ensemble.
Don Netanyahu alliance with Barak is not circumstancial, neither is his Meridor association.
Micky Eitan is a good boy dug up from the meretz hatcheries.
Shalom, (a solid disenngagement peon),Begin, (who knows who he really is), Livnat, (disengagement material), Katz, (chasing opportunity),form that exquisite underflooring of pompous irrealiability.
They all will defeat any attempt to change the badly distorted supreme courtiers system. Or re set the corrupted judicial and police.
They all will oppose true media clean up.
None of them can be relied upon to clear the Oslo infection from our midst.
AND they will not support TRUE construction in Yesh. On the contrary, they will support harming existing Jewish locations.
Other than theatricals nothing will be done regarding Iran. Nothing was done since 1985 so why we expect them to do something credible now?
Thank you, Benjamin Disraeli. Your proposals represent the most advanced Tory thinking of the mid-1860s.
Why was my comment #3 placed in moderation?
The fact is most of the time in democratic republics, votes are votes against and not in favor of. I call it the throw the bums out syndrome.
That said democracies empower the mobs who will vote for whoever promises them more. So the seeds of systemic failure are already built in to the system. No government or leader can live up to electoral promises.
If all those who pay no taxes or are on welfare are prohibited from voting, it would go a long way to correcting some of those built-in weaknesses in the system.
Who then would represent and defend the poor and the weak of society? Enshrine legal minimal safety net programs by constitutional amendment with a neutral ombudsman empowered to ensure that nothing is done to diminish to rights under the constitution as amended. Take the Supreme court out of the equation.
Having such a large group of non voters might be an incentive for politicians to get as many as possible into the productive workforce in-order to get their potential votes.
I notice that “traditional Jews” represent the norm in Israel, with the same result as the “general public”. I also notice that “secular Jews” and “orthodox Jews”, both modern and “ultra-“, are virtually the flip of one another.
By comparison, in 2008, 32% of Wyoming voters opted for Obama vs. 93% of DC voters, 72% of Hawaiians, and 68% of Vermonters. That shows that despite their deep differences, secular Jews are only about as different from the orthodox, as Americans from Wyoming are from those in Hawaii and Vermont; and not nearly as different as the Blacks of DC are from the Whites of Wyoming.
Imagine that! Vermonters, from rural, white Northern America, are as different from the same species in Wyoming as payote-wearing yeshiva students are from the Tel Aviv beach crowd. To me, that’s simply mind-boggling. The normal vote in America, by the way, was in Virginia and Colorado. Both went for Obama. I hope this time around, they vote against him.
The fact he removed this bill shows he has no intention of ever loosening the grip Israel’s leftist judicial dictatorship has on the country.
The good news is its reputation with average Israelis will continue to decline.
I agree with Ted and while he didn’t say it, I will. If for no other reason BB must go ASAP.
The 2010 Israeli Democracy Index: Democratic Values in Practice updated 1/2/2011
Some results of poll of Israeli Public Opinion:
http://www.idi.org.il/sites/english/events/ThePresidentsConference/Pages/2010DemocracyIndex.aspx
NOTE: The IDI, is a very leftist oriented and funded entity. I assume based on other similar polls that the results presented are skewed in favor of leftist desired results. Therefore where those polls show positive public opinions re: confidence in our Institutions I would automaticly lower them by some % and the converse as well should be elevated.
The Bill that BB rejects would find the majority of Israelis in favor. Again BB moves against the will and interest of the people who elected the Likud. In all things BB is a leftist and can only be pressured to to represent a non liberal and leftist position.