Israel no longer 'liberal democracy' for first time in 50 years, research institute says

By ELIAV BREUER

Published: MARCH 20, 2024 18:29

Updated: MARCH 20, 2024 20:50

AT A demonstration in Tel Aviv, earlier this month, against the government’s plan for judicial change, signs read ‘The student protest’ and ‘Without democracy, there is no academia.’ (photo credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90) — AT A demonstration in Tel Aviv, earlier this month, against the government’s plan for judicial change, signs read ‘The student protest’ and ‘Without democracy, there is no academia.’

(photo credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)

Liberal democracies include the above, as well as "judicial and legislative constraints on the executive along with the protection of civil liberties and equality before the law."

For the first time in 50 years, Israel no longer enjoys the status of a “liberal democracy” due to “substantial declines in the indicators measuring the transparency and predictability of the law, and government attacks on the judiciary,” according to the V-Dem Institute’s 2024 Democracy Report.

V-Dem, short for Varieties of Democracy, is a research institute based in Sweden that measures the levels of democracy worldwide based on a variety of what it defines as high-level principles of democracy. The institute publishes a yearly democracy report that splits the world’s countries into four categories: Liberal democracies, electoral democracies, electoral autocracies, and closed autocracies.

Electoral democracies, according to V-Dem, include “multiparty elections for the executive are free and fair; satisfactory degrees of suffrage, freedom of expression, freedom of association.”

Liberal democracies include the above, as well as “judicial and legislative constraints on the executive along with the protection of civil liberties and equality before the law.” Israel was a liberal democracy since the 1970s, but in 2023 became an electoral democracy, the report said.

According to the report, indicators that lowered Israel’s rating included a 2023 Knesset bill “stripping the Supreme Court of the power to invalidate laws, thus undermining checks on executive power.”

BANNING PUBLIC transportation on Shabbat: The state’s Jewish character versus its democratic nature. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)

A bill severely limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down regular laws and completely remove its power to invalidate Basic Laws, indeed passed its first readings in the Knesset, but did not pass into law.

Regarding Israel, the report added that “indicators that are in substantive decline also include freedom from torture,” but did not expand.

Yair Golan on Why Israel's democracy got downgraded

Yair Golan, former IDF deputy chief of staff, Meretz MK and current candidate for leadership of the Labor Party, said in response to the report, “A full year of messianic dreams, incessant threats against the judicial system, oppressive legislation, threats against the freedom of the press, harming fundamental rights of demonstration, and appointing ministers who are criminals, led us to lose our ranking as a liberal democracy.”