Habayit Hayehudi leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked are stepping up efforts to promote legislation bypassing the High Court of Justice in dealing with expelling illegal African migrant workers, Walla reported Monday. The two politicians on Sunday and Monday approached Cabinet Secretary Tzahi Braverman with a request to convene the Ministerial Committee on Legislation—chaired by Shaked—and put on its agenda a bill that overcomes previous High Court objections the expulsions.
Braverman has been refusing their demands for the time being, according to Walla, claiming that the prime minister “wants to study the subject” and wishes to meet with them first.
Bennett and Shaked announced last week that they would promote legislation bypassing the High Court of Justice that would include the “overruling clause,” so the Knesset could re-enact the Prevention of Infiltration Law, which was previously rejected by the High Court of Justice.
Section 8 (a) of Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation gives the Knesset the right to overrule a Supreme Court decision against a given Freedom of Occupation law, provided that it had received a majority of the Knesset votes and that the law specifically acknowledges that it violates the Freedom of Occupation, with a four-year sunset.
Bennett and Shaked would like to add a similar, general overruling clause to the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, or, failing that, to amend the Entry into Israel Law and add an overruling clause there, without risking the High Court of Justice’s disqualification.
Bennett is demanding that the ministerial committee convene this week, claiming that if the issue is postponed until after Independence Day it would evaporate for lack of public interest. But sources close to Netanyahu have told Walla that “the prime minister will lead the effort to resolve the issue of asylum seekers in all its aspects,” and “the ministerial committee will convene only after the prime minister has studies the matter and examines all the legal options available, and only after there’s an agreements on the wording of the law, which is ‘a common interest of all the coalition factions.'”
It’s good to be the King…
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu), who is opposed to any legislation bypassing the High Court of Justice on principle, has nevertheless committed to any legislation that would get rid of the infiltrators’ problem. Bennett and Shaked want to take advantage of the momentum created with Kahlon’s consent to pass the court bypassing legislation as soon as possible.