Judicial reforms: No judicial review on equality, derived rights - Rothman

Rights such as equality cannot be derived from Basic Laws during judicial review, Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman Simcha Rothman said during the Monday committee session, which was marred by outrage over protester tactics and intense screaming and insults between Knesset members.

"What does not enter into Basic Laws, there is no justification for judicial review of it," Religious Zionist Party MK Rothman said to committee legal adviser Gur Bligh. "A situation should not be allowed in which the Supreme Court invents basic laws for itself or inserts into the basic laws things that have come out of them for the purpose of repealing laws."

Rothman said that the Knesset had decided, for better or worse, not to include the principle of equality in Basic Laws.

The reform bill's most significant element

Bligh stated that the matter of reducing the High Court's ability to derive rights from the Basic Laws was the most significant element of the judicial reform bill debated at the session, which proposed an override clause and to restrict judicial review to cases with a full bench of justices in complete agreement on striking a law.

The legal advisor explained to the committee that in light of a limited Israeli bill of rights, for decades since the constitutional revolution, Israeli jurisprudence held that the High Court could derive rights such as equality and freedom of expression from the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

"As soon as you greatly reduce the ability to rule on them, you will not reach the question of requiring unanimity to invalidate the law at all, because the contradiction [of regular laws with Basic Laws] will be so limited that the High Court will not be required to do so anyway," said Bligh.

The matter of equality then became a notable part of the committee discussions.

"My partner and I are doing a surrogacy procedure in accordance with the present law," questioned Yesh Atid MK Yorai Lahav-Hertzano. "If the amendments were to pass as the chairman of the committee said, so that it would not be possible to derive rights, could we continue with the surrogacy procedure?" 

Bligh said that it would be a matter of interpretation of the reform bill.

Former Yesh Atid MK Nira Shpak and other committee guests questioned Rothman regarding women’s rights.

Shpak said that "The government makes sure to make the public space accessible to the ultra-Orthodox, but what about accessibility for women?"

Tensions were high during the session, which began with yelling over the morning's protests, which saw politicians such as Likud MK Tali Gottlieb confronted at her home and prevented from leaving.

"Human animals, wild animals, do not come to a person's house and while acting violently, say that I will not leave the house," said a distraught Gottlieb. "We are public servants, we will do our work faithfully, they will not violate our personal security, you will not harm privacy in the name of protest."

Gottlieb said that the strife and rhetoric had gone too far, and could devolve into bloodshed.

Politicians at the committee condemned the protesters that had blocked MKs, saying that they had gone too far.

"In my eyes, this crosses a red line," said MK Gideon Sa'ar.

However, Hadash Ta'al MK Ofer Cassif and Yesh Atid MK Orna Barbivai said that the right had to condemn incitement from its camp, which they said had accused the left of supporting terrorism and treason for their opposition to judicial reform.

The session often devolved into name-calling, with MKs hurling pejoratives such as "antisemite" and "terrorist" at one another.