A portion of the amendment to the police ordinance, a.k.a. Ben Gvir’s Law, regulating the relationship between the National Security Minister and the police was passed by the Knesset on December 28 by a vote of 61 to 55. The Knesset also approved the splitting of the Ben Gvir Law, so that the “problematic” clauses in the proposed bill would be debated after the formation of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
After insisting during committee debates that he would not compromise on the bill beyond a few minor changes, Ben Gvir eventually announced that out of fear that the law would be rejected by the High Court of Justice due to the speed with which it was introduced, he allowed the law to be split, and the vote on the clauses that caused the most controversy, determining the submission of the police commissioner to the minister, as well as limiting the duration of the processing of cases, would be postponed, and their discussion would be resumed only after the new government is sworn in.
Both items are crucial: Ben Gvir insists that in a democracy, the elected minister in charge of the police should be the one deciding police policy; and he wanted to end the police practice of sitting on cases for years, only to pull them out against a political foe at an opportune time.
Ben Gvir did the math and decided to have the bird in the hand, but now, the other bird appears to be hiding behind political red tape. The Knesset National Security Committee that should handle the debate on Ben Gvir’s other half of the bill does not yet exist. And for the committee to be established there must be a Knesset debate on its future powers. This kind of debate, even with a strong, right-wing coalition, should take around two weeks.
Meanwhile, last Wednesday, the Labor Party petitioned the Supreme Court against the amendment to the police ordinance on the grounds that it constitutes regime change “that could lead the State of Israel to become a ‘police state,’ in which the police would be an armed force at the service of political parties.”
It should be interesting whether Supreme Court President Esther Hayut would recuse herself from hearing any petitions regarding the current government, seeing as it has openly attacked it using arguments taken directly from the opposition parties. If she goes ahead and hears the petition, it may present a far greater threat to Israel’s democracy than changing the balance of the committee to appoint judges.
