From Aharon Barak to Today: The Debate on the Limits of the Court's Power | Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya

Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya argues that Aharon Barak turned Israel into a juristocracy, and that his successors, Hayut and Amit, exacerbated the situation into judicial tyranny. The article calls for completing the constitutional process through a Basic Law: Legislation and a constitutional court.

Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya analyzes in an opinion piece the development of Israel's judicial system, from Aharon Barak's appointment to the Supreme Court in 1978 to the present day. According to him, Barak carried out two main moves: in the 1980s, he transferred powers from the Knesset and the government to the court by eliminating the standing requirement, establishing comprehensive justiciability, and expanding the reasonableness ground; and in 1995, he turned Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty into a full constitutional document while deliberately ignoring the intent of its drafters. The author argues that after Barak's retirement, President Esther Hayut expanded the High Court's power to invalidate Basic Laws, and President Yitzhak Amit led the system to complete decay, through abuse of power and manipulations in panel assignments. The article calls on the leader elected after the elections to regulate the situation through a Basic Law: Legislation and the establishment of a constitutional court whose judges will be elected by the people's representatives in the Knesset by a special majority.