The opposition stated that they will challenge the document in the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, March 23, the Knesset of Israel ratified the law on the capacity of the head of the government, which limits the circumstances under which the prime minister can be removed from office, despite concerns expressed by a government lawyer that such a law could be aimed at protecting incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from any fallout from the corruption trials against him. This is reported by Reuters.
The changed definition of “incapacity” of national leaders is one of the coalition's legislative measures that led to the crisis in Israel, and the opposition says that the independence of the judiciary is under threat.
The coalition stresses that the reform is aimed at combating , which she calls the excessive powers of the Supreme Court, and to restore the balance between the branches of government.
The law received 61 votes “for” and 47 “against”. The Knesset approved a bill according to which the prime minister can be declared “unfit” and forced to resign if he himself or three-quarters of the cabinet members so declare.
These provisions specified the “fundamental law “, which provides guidance to the government in the event of a prime minister's incapacity, but which previously lacked detail on the circumstances that could lead to removal from power.
According to the Israel Democracy Institute think tank, the provision previously made Netanyahu vulnerable to a possible declaration of incapacity by Attorney General Hali Baharav-Miara if she saw that the prime minister was trying to stop legal proceedings against him.
The new law excludes such a possibility, said Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, adding that he considered such a conclusion by the attorney general an unlikely “extreme case”.
Netanyahu denies all the charges against him and calls the trials a politicized attempt to force him to resign.
Baharav-Miara, who was appointed by Israel's former centrist government, said last month that Netanyahu should not participate in his coalition's push to reform the judiciary because of what she sees as a conflict of interest related to the trials against him.
Deputy Baharav-Miara Gil Limon expressed concerns about the incapacity bill during the Knesset session.
“What we see before our eyes is a group of legislative elements that are of the greatest concern and are moving at great speed. They have the potential to serve a person's self-interest in terms of the outcome of the legal proceedings they have faced,” he said.
The movement for quality government in Israel appealed to the Supreme Court against the new law. If the court decides to overturn the law, that in itself will inflame the animosity.
Before the parliamentary vacation, the coalition intends to approve several more laws from the legal reform package. Among them, the most important amendment to the Basic Law on the Judiciary, which provides for changes to the procedure for appointing judges.
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Since January, Israel stirred up mass protests, where demonstrators demand to abandon the judicial reform, because they believe that it is a direct threat to democracy in the state.
In particular, the new judicial reform provides for the transfer of control to the parliamentary majority over the process of selecting Supreme Court judges, as well as the rejection of the legislative principle that allows the Supreme Court to overturn government decisions. Due to the absence of a Constitution and a Constitutional Court in Israel, the Supreme Court exercised control over the actions of the government. Innovations threaten to sharply limit the Supreme Court's powers of judicial supervision and consolidate political control over the appointment of judges.
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A part of society believes that this threatens the principles of democracy, namely the system of checks and balances, which allows maintaining the balance of the three branches of power.
