Simcha Rothman on Reforming Israel's Justice System

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are major concerns facing Israel's democracy today. Some have to do with voting and Israel's system of electoral representation. Others relate to Israel's judiciary. Champions of the current configuration of the Israeli judiciary believe that its famous independence is a necessary check on the legislature, and that it exercises proper authority in checking and repealing illegitimate laws. Critics, on the other hand, assert that Israel's supreme court has no right to undo laws that were passed by democratically elected members of the Knesset. Since Israel has no constitution, they ask, on what basis can an Israeli court assert that a law is illegitimate?

This debate, one of the biggest in Israeli society today, will likely be at the top of the agenda for the incoming government. This week's podcast guest, the Knesset member Simcha Rothman, is one of the most important players in that debate—he is a central architect of the effort to reform Israel's judiciary. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, he explains how Israel's judiciary got stronger over time, why so many have sought to change it in recent years, and what changes he hopes to put into law.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a great deal of discussion about the health of Israel's democracy, and whether the nation that has held five elections in under four years is not democratic enough.
0:19.0	This last election, one should add, enjoyed turnout of over 70% of the electorate.
0:24.0	So putative concerns about Israel's democracy
0:27.0	are not located in the fundamental act of choosing
0:30.3	who serves in the legislature.
0:32.5	Concerns about Israel's democracy tend to focus instead
0:35.6	on who serves in the judiciary, on Israel's Supreme
0:39.2	Court, the purview and scope of judicial rulings, and whether there is political influence over
0:44.9	them. Champions of the current configuration of the Israeli judiciary believe that its independence
0:50.0	is a necessary check on the legislature, and that it exercises proper authority in checking and
0:57.0	repealing illegitimate laws. Critics of the judiciary ask, reasonably enough, on what grounds a court
1:04.0	can assert that a law is illegitimate? Recall that Israel has no written constitution and the ability
1:10.7	for justices to undo laws that were duly passed by democratically elected members of the Knesset is a right that the court seems to have invented for its own use.
1:22.6	On what basis the critics ask does this body have standing to contravene Israel's parliament? Welcome to the
1:29.1	Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. My guest today is Simcha Rothman, a Knesset member from
1:34.4	Hatsiyonut, Adatit, the religious Zionist party, who's really the central architect of the effort
1:39.9	to reform Israel's judiciary. Before his entrance into electoral politics, he founded
1:45.6	Mechilut, the movement for governability and democracy. Back in 2013, he's been a member of the Knesset
1:52.0	since 2021. Simcha was recently in Washington, D.C., as a part of a delegation from the Israel
1:58.1	Law and Liberty Forum, an organization supported by Tikva, meeting with colleagues from the Federalist Society.
2:04.6	If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.
2:11.0	I hope you leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas.
	...

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