Religious Zionist Chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich, together with MK Simcha Rothman, on Tuesday, presented their plan to repair Israel’s judicial system, which includes removing the offense of fraud and breach of trust for elected officials. Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial for these two charges.
In a press conference at the Maccabiah Village, the two MKs explained that their “Law and Justice” program would fix the legal system and strengthen Israeli democracy.
Smotrich said: “We will insist that these amendments are carried out, and we will have a democracy where the branches of government work in a balanced manner with one another.”
Rothman noted that the justice complex today does not monitor itself and runs as a “system that tramples the laws and the rights of citizens.”
But Israel’s media paid little attention to the plan, which will come not a minute too soon for the broken and corrupt judicial system, rife with nepotism and dominated by the Ashkenazi elites––which includes many who are not ethnically Ashkenazi but may as well be––and focused its entire attention on the fact that the amendments, should they become law, would help Netanyahu ditch two out of the three criminal indictments he is facing.
The Haaretz-owned economic paper TheMarker topped everyone else with the headline: Religious Zionism proposes to make corruption the official religion of Israel. The Haaretz slogan, mind you, is “The newspaper for thinking people.”
The Likud party, alas, saturated the conversation with a silly argument that just made the RZ plan look bad, and overshadowed the plan to repair a sick court and prosecution system. Likud stated that the RZ plan would not affect the ongoing legal proceedings against Netanyahu. That’s a blatant lie. If a defendant is suddenly faced with a situation whereby the law they allegedly transgressed was deleted, the court would not convict them. The same goes for convicted individuals who are serving time for breaking a dead law. They all go home.
Smotrich contributed his own silly note to the debate that was designed to undermine his plan, saying, “I think Netanyahu’s trials are the best background music to carrying out these corrections because his trial reveals precisely the failures, injustices, and diseases of the system that we want to correct. Netanyahu will be acquitted, but we have an interest in his trial continuing.”
He shouldn’t have said it. Earlier in the press conference, he made a much more convincing case for eliminating the fraud and breach of trust offenses, calling them “fluid and undefined,” where the biases of the police and prosecution set the goalposts for the alleged crime.
The “French Law”
Take Case 1,000, which alleges that Israeli businessman Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer gave the Netanyahu couple hundreds of thousands worth of cigars, champagne, and jewelry. Most people would agree that for these two rich men to deliver so many goods over more than a decade is inappropriate. But is it criminal, or could it be mended by Netanyahu’s writing a check to turn those gifts into a purchase?
On the other hand, if the prosecution could prove that the goods were a bribe, for which Netanyahu did something exceptional favoring Milchan and Packer, it would be a whole nother ball of yarn. But over the past year, it appears that all the prosecution has been able to do in Case 1000 is show how many different ways Milchan and Packer gave those luxury goods to the Netanyahus, and hasn’t been able to make a firm case connecting them to favors the former PM would have done for his friends regardless of those gifts.
Smotrich and Rothman aren’t looking to remove bribery as a reason to criminally indict a public official – they want to erase the fuzzy ones, fraud, and breach of trust.
The 1958 French constitution shields the president of the republic from any investigation, indictment, or subpoena by the justice system. If the president is suspected of high crimes and misdemeanors, both legislative houses must pass a law creating a special high court to hear the evidence. The Israeli equivalent––since it has only one legislative house––would be an 80-MK vote to indict the prime minister.
The American system has a similar mechanism, the infamous impeachment of the president, which also requires the participation of both parts of the legislature –– the House of Representatives prosecutes and the Senate hears the evidence and decides the president’s fate.
Both the French and the American systems remove the decision from the hands of civil servants eager to add a presidential notch to their belts and deposit the decision in the hands of elected officials.
Take Judicial Appointments Away from Judges
The Smotrich-Rothman plan also deposits the decision on judicial appointments, especially of supreme court justices, in the hands of elected officials, who under the current system are a minority in the appointment process. The Israeli Judicial Selection Committee, the body that appoints judges to Israeli courts, is chaired by the Justice Minister and includes one Cabinet Minister, two MKs, two members of the Bar Association, the Chief Justice, and two additional Supreme Court justices. That’s four elected officials out of nine committee members.
The RZ plan proposes changing the composition of the committee so that its nine members will include 4 coalition MKs, 2 MKs from the opposition, the president of the Supreme Court, and one district court judge, and one magistrate court judge chosen by the Justice Minister.
Rothman added at the press conference that prospective Supreme Court justices would undergo a public hearing; the Supreme Court president would not be appointed based on tenure; and high court justices would be appointed randomly to panels.
Let the AG Be Only an AG
Regarding the position of Attorney General, Smotrich said the role must be split into three different positions: a legal consultant to the government; an attorney representing the state in court; and an Attorney General acting as an independent prosecutor.
Rothman added that there would be a supervisory body above the state prosecutor’s office, subordinate to none and authorized to file its own indictments.
Finally, the Smotrich-Rothman plan takes on restoring the balance among the three branches of government using the superseding clause. The Knesset would be able to overturn a high court ruling annulling its legislation, and a Knesset law may be revoked only with the unanimous consent of all the Supreme Court justices.
Another crucial correction: Smotrich and Rothman want to restore the principle of a right of standing at the High Court of Justice, meaning that one may sue at the high court only if one is looking to remedy a personal injustice, and not because one doesn’t like a particular law.
Israel is the only country in the world where anyone can petition the high court, even if they are not directly related to the case.
MKs Smotrich and Rothman just delivered another, excellent reason to vote for the Religious Zionism party on November 1.
Here is the reform outline in English https://zionutdatit.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Law-and-Justice-Summary-2.pdf
