Israel might not be the first country that comes to mind when considering the importance of the rule of law. It is not ranked by the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index. In 2022 to Australia was ranked 13 out of 140 countries by the World Justice Project. However the events that have taken place in Israel in the first few months of 2023 have lessons for all of us especially our political leaders. 

The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu undertook a judicial overhaul under the guise of a proposed reform. (Note: the plans to overhaul the judicial system have now been put on hold until the next parliament session.)

The reforms had two major changes; greater power to politicians to select judges and the ability for parliament to overrule the judiciary. 

1. The Power to Select Judges

The proposed reforms would give Israel’s politicians greater power to select judges.

In Australia, politicians and only politicians select judges. That is not caused any great difficulty as that selection of judges has almost always been based on merit. However that does not occurred with respect to two of Australia’s administrative review bodies, being the Fair Work Commission and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. With respect to the AAT, the current Federal Government has indicated it will be abolished and replaced it with a new tribunal. This has been brought about by the previous Federal Government stacking the AAT with what might be described as government friendly appointees.

In the United States of America, the appointment of judges to senior positions is almost always based on which political party the judge has supported. On issues that involve a political element, decisions are often, if not always, based on which party appointed the judge, or the majority of judges, to the bench hearing the matter. That is not in the case in Australia for our judicial bodies.

In response to the proposed Israeli reforms, there has been mass protests by Israelis, hospitals have stopped non-emergency services, diplomats have walked off the job, and flights of been disrupted. About 80,000 demonstrators joined a rally in Jerusalem against the reform package. Perhaps most significantly, threats were made by military personnel opposed to the reforms that they would not report for duty. In Israel this has caused a very serious security issue.

The Israeli Prime Minister and the ruling parties initially held out against the protesters. However earlier this week they perhaps recognised the enormous difficulties the proposed reforms were creating amongst Israelis and the reforms were suspended.

This demonstrates that the rule of law is there to benefit the people, and it is the people that must understand its importance and react when it is under threat. In addition politicians must be carefully watched by the people as they often think in terms of increasing their own power at our expense.

– Malcolm Stewart, Senior Vice President