Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said on February 19, 2023, Sunday, that U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides should mind his own business and not meddle in the internal affairs of Israel. Amichai Chikli made the strong comments after the American ambassador to Israel spoke against the judicial reforms being carried out by the Benjamin Netanyahu government.
“I say to the American ambassador, slam the breaks on yourself and mind your own business,” said Chikli after Nides said that the Israel govt should go slow on the judicial reforms. “You’re not the sovereign here. We’d be happy to debate with you international or security affairs, but respect our democracy,” the Israeli Diaspora affairs minister added.
“The relationship with the United States is very important, but this intervention by Nides is very problematic,” said Amichai Chikli, strongly objecting to the American ambassador’s comments on Israel’s internal matters.
Amichai Chikli made the comments after Tom Nides said that the Joe Biden administration is demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should “pump the brakes” on the judicial reforms. “We’re telling the prime minister—as I tell my kids—‘pump the brakes, slow down, try to get a consensus, bring the parties together,’” Nides told former Obama administration official David Axelrod during an interview in the podcast The Axe Files on CNN.
“It’s very complicated, they’re trying to do things way too fast, and to pump the brakes, slow down,” Nides added.
He added that while US is not ‘dictating’ to Israel on how to conduct its internal affairs, he said that the one thing that binds their countries together is a sense of democracy. The ambassador’s comments came after last week Joe Biden said that consensus is needed for any fundamental change while answering a question on the proposed changes in Israel.
“The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary. Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained,” president Biden had said.
According to op-eds published in American media, Israel govt is attempting to strip the Israeli Supreme Court of its independence and put it under Netanyahu’s control instead. Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Constitution, Law and Justice Committee is currently discussing the proposed judicial reforms, which propose to give greater weight to the legislation and the executive in the composition of Judicial selection committee.
The reforms seek to curb the influence of an overreaching judiciary, and seek to shift power from unelected bureaucratic rule of the judiciary to elected legislators and the government. The judiciary in Israel has increased its influence over law making and public policy in the last few years, and the proposed reformed spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice Yariv Levin attempts to correct this.
The proposed changes give the Knesset power to overturn supreme court judgements, reduce ability of judicial review of legislation, and prohibit courts from ruling on the constitutionality of basic laws passed by the Knesset.
The bill also seeks to change the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee, which appoints judges, so that there is greater say of the govt in the appointments. At the present system, the committee has nine members, 3 SC judges, 2 from bar association, 2 Knesset members and 2 ministers, giving the judiciary a majority. The proposed system will have 11 members, which will have 3 ministers including the law minister, 3 Knesset members, 3 SC judges including the president and 2 public representatives chosen by the minister of justice. Thus, the government will have complete control over appointment of judges.
In many ways, the ongoing government versus judiciary debate in Israel is similar in many ways to the same debate going on in India, including the collegium system, courts interfering in administrative activities, stalling development projects, making unwarranted remarks etc.