Israel's Ex-Top Judges Warn That Defying Court Orders Would Mark ‘Last Nail in Democracy's Coffin’
New Delhi: Amid concern that the Benjamin Netanyahu-led Israeli government's explicit and unprecedented decision not to recognise a Supreme Court order could trigger a constitutional crisis, all living former heads of the apex court on Monday (July 6) said such behaviour would mark the “last nail in the coffin of democracy”.
Israel's communications minister Shlomo Karhi on Sunday said his government will not recognise a June 17 Supreme Court order saying that a TV and radio regulatory body should continue functioning despite some of its members stepping down.
For this decision he cited the Netanyahu government's belief that the order violates existing law. The government on Sunday had ‘unanimously’ approved a declaration presented by Karhi and law minister Yariv Levin to this effect; it also asserted that Tel Aviv will “act with all legal tools at its decision to annul the decision”.
“You have no authority to trample the law – a ruling that contradicts the law will not be recognised, and decisions made under its authority are null and void,” Karhi said in a statement, which local media characterised as a first in the country's history.
A day after Israeli President Isaac Herzog, attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara and the country's opposition leaders decried the government's decision, all living former heads of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem condemned the move in a joint statement on Monday.
“Such conduct completely undermines normal governance and law in the country,” the Times of Israel quoted former Supreme Court Presidents Aharon Barak, Dorit Beinisch, Asher Grunis, Esther Hayut and Uzi Vogelman as saying. A refusal to respect or comply with judicial decisions, they said, would constitute “the last nail in the coffin of democracy”.
“It will lead to anarchy and to the concentration of all governmental powers in the hands of a single body alone, and will make the existence of a functioning society impossible,” they added, calling on the government to announce forthwith that it is committed to complying with court orders.
Haaretz reports that the court on June 17 had ordered that the regulatory body, the Second Authority for Television and Radio, should keep functioning until the bench hears petitions challenging Karhi's Bill to replace the regulator.
It ordered so despite the fact that six members of the Authority stepped down collectively – the court, according to Haaretz, described their resignations as following pressure exerted on them by Karhi and his associates. The government argues that the body cannot function because its strength has decreased by two-thirds.
Meanwhile some members of the government, such as cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs and culture and sports minister Miki Zohar indicated that it will not disobey the top court order, according to Reuters and the Times.
The tussle occurs in the wake of Netanyahu's highly contentious attempts to overhaul the judiciary, amid the Authority's pending adjudication of cases involving two Israeli TV channels, and ahead of general elections due by October in which the incumbent government is forecast to lose.
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