[londgine]

I've been following the situation in Israel, and I don't understand why the reasonability clause is something good to have in the first place. If a law is being passed, the SC could overrule it by simply saying that it is unreasonable. That sounds like an awful reason. Now the SC has to actually show which of the basic laws the proposed law contradicts. This is how it works in the US, and that makes sense to me. What am I missing?

[invalidname]

We have no other oversight otherwise. We don't have senate vs. congress. The court is supposed to oversee the government and our current prime minister is on trial for corruption.

For him this is about destroying any oversight which might put him in jail. His "partners" from the extreme right want to use it to annex the occupied territories without giving citizenship to 3M Palestinians.

[tguvot]

It's been used to prevent corruption in appointments. Or people with multiple criminal convictions from assuming ministerial posts (after those people as part of plea agreements promised to stay out of politics, as example). Or all kinds of stupid or dangerous things that government tries to pull off.

Essentially parties that are part of current coalition tend to be regarded as "job factories" and supreme court interferes with it. So they are not happy.

Also they want to fire attorney general (also judicial advisor to government ) which manages criminal case against prime minister and in general tries to prevent unlawful laws from passing. Firing her given conflict of interest is currently "unreasonable"

[londgine]

Using a bad tool for a good cause is still bad. Let's say that the Knesset wants to lower the SC salary, but the SC thinks that that salary is "unreasonably" low for the lifestyle that they deserve. Then they can simply cancel that law. And unlike with politicians, if the people think that that is a bad decision, they can't impeach any of them, nor can they have any influence into who the new justices will be.

[tguvot]

Everybody agrees that there should be reform. One that is done in consensus. But they went and did the most extreme version of reform. And they did it because if they don't do it - coalition will fall and they will loose next election. This is reform is so bad, that leaders of ultra-right party that run on platform of supreme court reform for a decade said that it bad and shouldn't be done

And if we are talking about new justices. One of the next planned laws is the one that gives to government ability to pick justices of their choosing

[JumpCrisscross]

> Now the SC has to actually show which of the basic laws the proposed law contradicts

There is no transition period. I agree that the clause is too subjective. But there is a lot of law resting on it, law regarding matters like corruption and the rights of minorities that are about to be swept away by this unilateral change. That's de-stabilising in a self-reinforcing way.

[londgine]

How else could it have been done? If the knesset passed a law saying that in 1 year the reasonability clause would be removed, would you be perfectly okay with that?

[JumpCrisscross]

> How else could it have been done?

For one, with something resembling consensus.

> If the knesset passed a law saying that in 1 year the reasonability clause would be removed, would you be perfectly okay with that?

You'd look at the rulings the Court has made on the basis of reasonability that deserve codification.

What the Knesset is doing now is a constitutional overhaul. Unfortunately, Israel lacks a written constitution, so the mechanism for amendment is unclear. That said, if you consider this as a razor-thin majority making major constitutional changes, the instability and de-legitimisation that causes makes sense. (Constitutional systems require supermajorities for amendments for a reason.)

[xenospn]

You’re missing a prime minister who is hell bent on staying out of prison.