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Prof. Aeyal Gross in Knesset Constitution Committee: “The Idea of Limiting Government Power Is at the Foundation of Modern Democracies”

On 20 February 2023, Prof. Eyal Gross, a member of Zulat’s Steering Committee, attended a session of the Knesset Constitution Committee, which is drafting the regime revolution laws. He voiced his and Zulat’s opposition to the proposed changes:

“I hear here today that Canada and Finland also have an override clause. If that is the case, then I propose to adopt the entire Canadian Bill of Rights. It talks about equality as an explicit right, about Canada as a multicultural country, which means a country of all its citizens, about separation of church and state, civil marriage, and equality between French and English, whose equivalent here would be Arabic and Hebrew. Let’s embrace the entire Canadian Bill of Rights! There are only two countries in the world with an override clause, but they are very different from ours. Do you want Canada? Then let’s bring it all!

“What you bring is one component from each country, which is not the best that country has to offer and is criticized there, too. You single out a legal component from another country without the constitutional context and structure. Let’s legislate a full human rights law before we override human rights! In a letter published on their behalf, Canada’s Supreme Court judges stated that there is no comparison between what you are doing here and their own override clause. A former Canadian Justice Minister said the clause was only invoked by the provinces and the accepted agreement is that it will not be invoked by the federal goverment. What Committee Chairman Rotman is doing clearly is cherry-picking, choosing only the parts that suit him.
“In addition to the fact that Israel, unlike Canada, does not have a written entrenched constitution, there is also the question of context. You want the Supreme Court to be appointed by the coalition; to be able to invalidate a law only unanimously, which is unparalleled anywhere in the world; even if it succeeds to invalidate a law, its ruling would come up against the override clause, which is also unparalleled anywhere in the world, except for two countries that are very different from ours. You also want to limit judicial review of the executive branch by abolishing the reasonableness standard and declare non-binding the opinion of the legal counsels of government ministries, who would be appointed on a political basis.

“The end result will be a government with unlimited power. The idea that a government’s power should be limited so as not to harm the citizens was not invented by Supreme Court justices Aharon Barak, Dorit Beinisch, or Esther Hayut, nor is it a matter of Right or Left. These principles were set more than 200 years ago as the foundation of modern democracies. What is happening now should bother every citizen in this country. Today they will violate one person’s rights and tomorrow it will be another person’s turn.”

Watch (Hebrew, no subtitles):

 

 

צילום מסך 2023-02-20 151427

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.