‘Dictator’: Opposition hurl insults as reasonableness bill passes committee vote

The bill is set to proceed to the Knesset plenum for its first reading, likely to occur next week.

By World Israel News Staff

Opposition leaders on Tuesday condemned the decision by the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to approve the contentious “reasonableness standard bill,” accusing committee head MK Simcha Rothman of being a “dictator.”

During a heated committee session in which a shouting match took place, MK Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and and MK Benny Gantz (National Unity) alleged that Rothman unlawfully hastened the legislative process to align with the end of the Knesset’s summer session, saying that the bill was a precursor to corruption, crafted to protect politicians rather than citizens.

The controversial Reasonableness Standard bill seeks to curtail the Supreme Court’s power to veto decisions made by the government or individual ministers on the grounds of being “excessive in terms of reasonableness,” with proponents of the bill arguing that it curbs the Supreme Court’s nebulous authority to determine “reasonableness.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the committee after the vote that the bill “strengthens democracy.”

The protests aren’t “a fight for democracy,” he said, but rather a “privileged group that is fighting to protect its privilege.”

“The left is allowed to block roads and the right is prohibited,” he said, and drew a comparison with the protests against the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza, during which thousands were arrested for blocking roads in protest over the removal of Israelis from their homes in what would later become a terrorist-run enclave.

Following approval in the committee, the bill is set to proceed to the Knesset plenum for its first reading, likely to occur next week.