S3E30: Israel's Supreme Court - A Professional or Political Institution?

History Behind News Program

Comparing Israel's Supreme Court to America's Supreme Court. 64 Israeli legislators, a slim majority of the Knesset, voted on Monday, July 24, to amend one of Israel's Basic Laws, and in so doing, they took away the Israeli Supreme Court's ability to strike down decisions that it finds "unreasonable in the extreme." WSJ, 7/24/23.

As my guests in this episode, Dr. Guy Lurie and Dr. Amir Fuchs explain, the news media, including our news media here in the U.S., simply exaggerate the application of the unreasonable standard at issue here. Israel Supreme Court's "unreasonableness Standard" is not used for constitutional or policy matters. Rather, it only applies to a narrow category of administrative cases. For example, the hiring and firing of top government officials. Without this power to check the government's administrative actions, Mr. Netanyahu could potentially fire Israel's attorney general, who is an outspoken critic of his administration and is steadfastly independent. And oh yes, Israel's AG is also in charge of investigating and prosecuting corruption charges currently pending against Mr. Netanyahu!

Back in April, I had a conversation with Dr. Gideon Rahat, a Senior Fellow at the Israel Democracy Insitute. He told me that this moment is the most central crisis in Israel's history, and he relayed to me that some people even liken it to war. He explained that this crisis has to do with Israel's national identity, and he described how essential the Supreme Court is to democracy in Israel because compared to the U.S., Israel has a poor system of checks and balances.

And that's what this episode is all about - Israel's Supreme Court.

For example, how does Israel’s Supreme Court compare to our Supreme Court? Does Israel’s Supreme Court have the same relationship with Israel’s legislative and executive government branches as the US Supreme Court has with Congress and the White House? Mr. Netanyahu seems to think so (listen to the episode and you'll get this). But Dr. Lurie and Dr. Fuchs disagree!

Dr. Guy Lurie is a Research Fellow in the Democratic Values and Institutions Program of the Israel Democracy Institute. He is an attorney and holds a Ph.D. in History from Georgetown University. Dr. Amir Fuchs is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions at the Israel Democracy Institute. He holds a doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a lecturer in the Politics and Communication Department at the School of Government and Social Sciences at Hadassah Academic College.

S3E14: Dr. Rahat re Israel's democracy: https://bit.ly/HbN-S3E14s

S3E26: Dr. Klarman re history of the US Supreme Court: https://bit.ly/HbN-S3E26s

I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Adel

Host of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠History Behind News⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ podcast

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