PNN – Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday ruled to overturn a law that is part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reform plan.
According to Pakistan News Network, the Supreme Court of Israel on Monday canceled a controversial law that is part of the judicial reform plan of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the Zionist regime.
According to Axios, close to American and Israeli sources, the repealed law limited the court’s ability to monitor cabinet decisions.
This ruling, which was issued in the midst of the Israeli crisis in the Gaza war, threatens to restart judicial and political conflicts in Israel.
While Netanyahu and his far-right political allies reacted strongly to the court’s decision, the controversy may push former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz to leave Netanyahu’s war cabinet, which was formed after the October 7 attacks.
Axios writes that Gantz’s departure as a member of the opposition party in Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet means that the right-wing parties will have to decide on the Gaza war, and this will affect US support for this war.
The law, which the Supreme Court ruled to invalidate today, was approved in July last year. The law sought to limit the Supreme Court’s oversight of cabinet actions and policies, and further limited the court’s ability to overturn cabinet decisions and appointments based on “reasonableness.”
The Supreme Court judges ruled that the court has the legal authority to judicially review basic laws and will be able to enter certain cases.
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This law was the first part of Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reform plan, which intensified the economic, military and political crises in the occupied Palestine in the past months and led to massive demonstrations.
The Supreme Court, with a favorable vote of 8 judges against the negative vote of 7 other judges, ruled to annul this law. The court said that the said law will be canceled because it causes serious and unprecedented damage to the “democratic nature of Israel”.
A few days ago, a draft of this court’s decision was leaked to Israel’s Channel 12. Netanyahu and his political allies then asked the court to refrain from publishing the verdict. They claimed that doing so in the middle of the Gaza war would create division.
Some argued that the ruling was illegal because two of the judges who supported the repeal of the said law had retired.
US President Joe Biden previously asked Netanyahu’s cabinet to reach a consensus on the judicial reform plan instead of unilaterally advancing it.
A day before the July vote on this law, Biden’s office asked Netanyahu in a statement to refrain from hastily advancing this law “given the set of threats and challenges facing Israel.”
After the approval of this law, thousands of Israeli army reserve soldiers, including pilots and members of the intelligence, cyber and special operations units, resigned from their jobs.
A few weeks before the approval of that law, the Israeli intelligence agencies warned Netanyahu four times that the internal crises created after the judicial reforms plan will lead to the weakening of Israel’s deterrence and will encourage Israel’s enemies to attack this regime.
After the so-called “Al-Aqsa Storm” operation on October 7, Netanyahu has been severely criticized for advancing the judicial reform plan. Critics say the divisions created as a result of the plan caused Israel to ignore external threats and caused the October 7 intelligence fiasco.