Outgoing Bar Association chief slams ‘delusional, dangerous’ judicial overhaul plans

On the back of his resignation last week comes this warning from him…

The Times of Israel reports

Avi Himi accuses Justice Minister Levin of seeking to ‘destroy democracy,’ says his proposals will make Israel ‘a dictatorship’; chair of Knesset law panel calls for AG to resign

The outgoing head of the Israel Bar Association said Friday that a judicial overhaul announced this week by new Justice Minister Yariv Levin would “turn Israel into a dictatorship.”

Defense attorney Avi Himi, who took the reins of the scandal-battered association in 2019 with a promise to rehabilitate the organization, announced in December that he would not run for a new term this June in protest of policies being pushed by the new government.

Himi charged that Levin “wants to destroy democracy in the country,” during an interview Friday with Channel 12 news. “He has a delusional, dangerous plan to turn Israel into a dictatorship.”

“Whoever has a plan like this is a bad person in my view. I am the last to run away, I am simply expressing a genuine, personal protest,” Himi said.

The intended changes proposed Wednesday by Levin, a top member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, would drastically limit the authority of the High Court of Justice to block legislation and government decisions deemed discriminatory and/or undemocratic, give the government control over judicial selection, and eliminate ministry legal advisers appointed by the attorney general.

Critics have warned that the overhaul, which Israel’s new hard-right coalition has said it will prioritize, would remove the judiciary’s role as the only effective check on the power of the ruling majority. Proponents argue that court rulings overturning legislation or government decisions subvert the will of Israeli voters.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/outgoing-bar-association-chief-slams-delusional-dangerous-judicial-overhaul-plans/