‘Bureaucratic coup’: Legal expert slams A-G’s ruling against judicial reform, sides with Netanyahu

“There is no legal basis for this disqualification, and it can only be described as a bureaucratic coup designed to cement the court’s authoritarian control of Israel,” says Prof. Eugene Kontorovich.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, a director at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, which has advocated judicial reform in Israel for a decade, sided with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the controversial judicial reforms initiated by Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Likud).

On Wednesday, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara told the prime minister that he cannot be involved in an overhaul of the judicial system, saying it would present a conflict of interests due to his own legal battles.

Netanyahu rejected Baharav-Miara’s decision, arguing that an “independent judiciary doesn’t mean an unbridled judiciary.”

Kontorovich released a statement Thursday, calling the attorney general’s statement “simply absurd.”

“She herself has a massive conflict of interest, as much of the judicial reform restricts the authoritarian power of her office,” he said.

“Unlike the prime minister, she did not just win a decisive election with the public fully informed of all possible conflicts. There is no legal basis for this disqualification, and it can only be described as a bureaucratic coup designed to cement the court’s authoritarian control of Israel.

“If the elected PM can’t reform the Court, it means no one can,” he concluded.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that “in order to secure freedom and democracy, you need the balance between three branches of government. In Israel, that balance has been thrown askew and you have one branch, a huge branch, a tree trunk—the judiciary—basically overcoming, arrogating to itself, the powers of the legislative and the government.”

The prime minister explained that Israel’s Supreme Court justices “self-select,” referring to the fact that judges hold veto power in Israel’s Judicial Selection Committee.

“This is a system we have in Israel. And if I say to you, this is democracy, you’d say that’s ridiculous. It’s unacceptable,” he stated.

He requested two weeks to respond fully to the attorney-general’s decision, which, according to a joint statement by the heads of all the coalition members, flew in the face of the “unambiguous mandate” received by the government in the elections.

Over the past several Saturday nights, an estimated 100,000 left-wing activists, including many waving Palestinian flags, protested against the judicial reforms, claiming they would destroy democracy in Israel.