180,000 protesters against judicial reform in Israel

In Israel, up to 180,000 people came out to demonstrate against judicial reform on Saturday, July 8, reported The Times of Israel. Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the country’s government is embarking on the practical implementation of judicial reform due to the opposition’s refusal to negotiate on it.

The newspaper, citing Crowd Solutions estimates, writes that more than 140,000 people took part in the protests in Tel Aviv alone, and tens of thousands more people took part in the action in other cities. The organizers of the demonstration claimed that the total number of participants in Tel Aviv approached 180,000.

By information Reuters, the protest against judicial reform has become the largest in recent weeks. Next week, Parliament is expected to hold the first of three votes on the first bill, which limits some of the Supreme Court’s power to rule against government, ministerial and elected officials’ actions.

At the end of March, Netanyahu put the reform on hold amid protests by thousands that began in January. So, on March 26, 630,000 people came out to protest against a country population of 9.5 million, trade unions went on strike on March 27, in which doctors, kindergarten teachers, university teachers, officials and air traffic controllers took part. The reservists of the elite branches of the military refused to go through the training camp. Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke out in favor of rejecting the reform. A few months later, in June, the Prime Minister informedthat the country’s government is embarking on the practical implementation of judicial reform because of the opposition’s refusal to negotiate on it.

The judicial reform, which has been drafted since 2021, was introduced on January 4, 2023. According to it, the government can gain control over the appointment of judges, and the powers of the Supreme Court will be curtailed. Thus, the parliament will be able to re-adopt a law that was overturned by the Supreme Court by a majority of 61 votes. In addition, the Supreme Court will not be able to discuss the main laws of the country, and the rest will be able to cancel only with the consent of 80% of the judges. Opponents of the reform accused the authors of the bill of intending to concentrate power in the hands of the ruling party.