Israeli MK attacks opponents who use ‘Nazi’ label to attack Supreme Court bill

“The incessant comparisons to Nazism and fascism suffer not only from a moral flaw, but mostly from deep ignorance,” says Likud MK Sharren Haskel.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Likud MK Sharren Haskel on Tuesday condemned critics of her bill to prevent uninvolved third parties from flooding the Supreme Court with appeals after they compared it to laws passed by the Nazis.

“The incessant comparisons to Nazism and fascism suffer not only from a moral flaw, but mostly from deep ignorance,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “In Nazi Germany, the judicial system was effectively abolished due to the Accreditation Act, passed in the Reichstag through threats of force by the Nazi regime.”

“There is absolutely no comparison between the … murder, rape, looting and totalitarianism they experienced and the debate taking place today in democratic countries regarding the limitations of standing before the courts,” she wrote.

Haskel’s opponents, almost all of them identifying with the Left, pulled out the “Nazi” label in an outpouring of condemnation on social media over recent days after she tabled the bill that would limit those who could appeal to the Supreme Court to the parties directly affected in a case.

Yair Olmert, son of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, wrote, “Without whitewashing words – this proposed law of Sharren Haskell corresponds well with Hitlerian Nazism.”

“This is what dictatorship looks like,” wrote Hadar Segal, a former activist of Yesh Atid.

“The basic question of the right of standing is ‘what is the status of the person who goes to court,’ and it is intended to ensure that the person seeking relief – especially relief against the state – has indeed been harmed or is likely to be harmed by the action against him,” Haskell wrote, explaining her bill.

This is not the case today, the Canadian-born MK continued. As an example, she cited pro-Palestinian organizations that locate Arabs who claim ownership of land where a Jewish village has been built and argue the cases for them in court. The courts are overwhelmed with such appeals, where the judges do not question their right “to present a position as a real litigant in the proceedings.”

As a consequence, she argued, the courts are so overburdened that “real people, who are in need of legal relief, are pushed to the end of the line,” and the courts have been turned into battlegrounds over what are essentially political issues.

“My bill is meant to leave the political debate in the political arena, and not drag the courts there,” she wrote. “Making the Supreme Court a supreme body over the other branches does not strengthen democracy, but harms it, it erodes public trust in both the judiciary and political systems.

“Any attempt to circumvent the voter’s choice is the erosion of democracy. A balance between the judiciary and elected officials is necessary for the benefit of us all – and I do not intend to give it up for a moment.”