The court split almost down middle over the highly contentious legislation, the only law from the government’s polarizing judicial overhaul package to have been passed, with eight justices ruling to strike down the law and seven to uphold it.
But fully 13 out of the full 15-justice panel that heard the case wrote in their opinions that the court did have the authority to review Basic Laws. And of the five justices who asserted this right but declined to strike down the reasonableness law, three expressed deep concern over the legislation and wrote that it should be interpreted in a narrow manner to preserve aspects of the reasonableness standard.
In what is perhaps the most significant outcome of the decision, the court fully actualized in legal precedent the argument made in previous rulings by former Supreme Court justice Esther Hayut that it does have, in limited circumstances, the right to annul Basic Laws if they undermine the key characteristics of the State of Israel as a Jewish and a democratic country.
The ruling marks the culmination of a year-long battle between the government and the judiciary over the nature of Israel’s democracy, and the question of which branch of government has ultimate say over its constitutional character. READ MORE