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JERUSALEM – Israel's Supreme Court on Monday overturned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's polarizing law that sought to limit the court's power over government decisions, sparking mass anti-government protests and international condemnation.
Netanyahu's plans to reform the judiciary rocked Israel in the months before the Israel-Gaza war – and now threaten to trigger a constitutional and leadership crisis just three months after the deeply divided country united behind the war effort.
Netanyahu's Likud party criticized the decision as “contrary to the nation's desire for unity, especially in times of war.”
“Today the Supreme Court faithfully fulfilled its role in protecting the citizens of Israel,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said on X, formerly Twitter.
Monday's ruling concerned a change to Israel's “Basic Law,” which replaces a constitution and was pushed through and passed by Netanyahu's far-right government in July. The amended law stripped Israel's Supreme Court of the right to block decisions by government ministers that judges consider “unreasonable.”
The Supreme Court rejected the law on Monday by a vote of 8-7 and called for the law to be repealed in its ruling. If Netanyahu's government refuses to comply with the ruling, the war-torn country could find itself in a constitutional crisis.
The reform plan, first proposed by Netanyahu's coalition last January, sparked widespread social unrest for nearly a year and faced extraordinary resistance from the military and senior security officials.
Supporters of the law said it was a necessary corrective to an activist Supreme Court led by a coterie of elite judges. Opponents said the law could lead to authoritarianism and pave the way for Netanyahu's far-right and ultra-Orthodox supporters to change key foundations of Israel's liberal democracy.
Weekly protests against the proposal drew hundreds of thousands of people. Military pilots and soldiers threatened not to volunteer if the government refused to deviate from its plan.
In March, Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, after Gallant called on the government to halt its plan and warned of potential security problems for Israel if reservists withdrew. Gallant was reinstated two weeks later.
President Biden, one of Israel's staunchest allies, also spoke out against the law in March in a rare public dissent. “I hope he desists,” Biden said, adding that the Netanyahu government “cannot continue down this path.”
Mellen reported from Tel Aviv.