Israel’s Supreme Court strikes back

AT ANY OTHER time it would have provoked a constitutional crisis. For much of 2023 Israelis had taken to the streets to protest against the government’s efforts to weaken the power of judges to overrule the government, a step many saw as an attack on Israel’s democracy. Yet when on January 1st Israel’s highest court struck down the judicial-reform law passed just six months earlier, most Israelis shrugged. Since Hamas attacked in October, killing or kidnapping some 1,400 people and sparking a war in Gaza, Israelis have had bigger issues to worry about. Even so, the ruling is a notable blow to the right-wing government led by Binyamin Netanyahu, and its ramifications will be felt long after the fighting in Gaza has ended.

The court’s former president, Esther Hayut, in one of the last rulings of her tenure which ended in October, said that this was one of the “rare cases where the beating heart of a constitution…is harmed”. She was referring to an amendment passed last July in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, which all but eliminated the court’s ability to overturn government decisions that it deemed “unreasonable”.