New protests against judicial reform
Tens of thousands of Israelis took to Israel’s main streets to protest the controversial justice system reform bill.
This is the 28th day of protests since the reform bill was announced in January.
AFP
Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday to protest a controversial reform plan for the judicial system, seen by its critics as an authoritarian slide.
The protests, the 28th day since the reform bill was unveiled in January, come days after parliament approved a major reform measure by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, one of the most right-wing in the country’s history. The clause voted on Tuesday aims to strip the judiciary of the opportunity to rule on the “reasonableness” of government decisions.
The most right-wing government in the country’s history
“This is a war for the country, we want Israel to be democratic, dictatorial laws will not be passed here,” protester Nili Elezra, 54, told AFP. “Things are going to go wrong. People are already leaving, money is being lost, investors are fleeing, the world doesn’t want to talk to us, and nobody is happy about what’s going on here,” he said. Faced with fierce opposition and international criticism, including from US President Joe Biden, Netanyahu ordered a “pause of negotiations” in March, but It ended last month.
For Elad Ziv, the next few weeks promise to be crucial: “There are two and a half weeks until the end of the parliament’s summer session, and we have to block them,” the 45-year-old programmer told AFP. Announced shortly after the government formed earlier this year by Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by far-right parties and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, the judicial reform is aimed specifically at curtailing the privileges of the Supreme Court. Administrative Judge politicized. Critics of the reform believe it opens the way to an anti-liberal or authoritarian drift.
AFP
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