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Tov TV: The Israeli Supreme Court has Destroyed Democracy Gil-White Francesco interviews Yoram Sheftel
*Constitutional Comparison to the US & the High Court’s Hostile Takeover:*
Attorney Yoram Sheftel explains that in the US Supreme Court, no one would ever dream of striking down a provision of the Constitution or one of its 26 amendments.
In Israel, by contrast, even though the Basic Laws practically constitute a broader and more comprehensive constitution than the American one, the Supreme Court has usurped the authority—without any statutory basis or legal justification—to strike down Basic Laws, parts of them, or regular statutes. Sheftel characterizes this as a hostile, dictatorial takeover of the Knesset, which is democratically elected by the sovereign people.
The Five Pillars of the High Court's Dictatorship: Sheftel outlines the five core principles through which Aharon Barak established an autocratic regime:
- Universal Justiciability ("Everything is Justiciable"): The ruling that every political matter is subject to the final determination of the Supreme Court.
- Abolition of Legal Standing: Any person off the street can petition the court against a government decision or law, even without demonstrating direct legal injury.
- The Reasonableness Standard: The authority to strike down any executive action deemed "unreasonable" in the eyes of the judges.
- Striking Down Laws and Basic Laws: A power manufactured out of thin air in 1995 with zero statutory anchoring in Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.
- Binding Legal Advice: A 1994 ruling declaring that the Attorney General's legal opinions are binding executive orders, practically making the Attorney General the de facto Prime Minister.
The Autocratic Status of the Attorney General & Inherent Conflict of Interest: Sheftel dissects an absurdity nonexistent in any Western democracy: a single unelected official who cannot be dismissed serves simultaneously as head of the prosecution and chief legal adviser to the government. This creates an acute conflict of interest (as demonstrated in the Netanyahu trials—where the AG advises the Prime Minister while simultaneously prosecuting him), giving the Attorney General absolute veto power to freeze elected government policies in service of the Court's agenda.
The High Court's Ideology & Political Warfare: Sheftel defines the Court's ideology as post-Zionist, post-Jewish, and aimed at transforming Israel into a non-Jewish state. He describes the Supreme Court not as a judicial body, but as an extreme left-wing political party operating from within the justice system, consistently hostile to right-wing and Likud-led coalitions ever since Menachem Begin’s 1977 electoral victory.
The Imperative of an Initiated Constitutional Crisis & the Upcoming Elections:
When Gil-White questions why successive Netanyahu administrations repeatedly complied with the Court's edicts instead of defying them, Sheftel responds that he has spent 15 years calling for an initiated constitutional showdown in which the government refuses to obey a High Court ruling, demonstrating that the judiciary is entirely powerless against the executive and the sovereign public.
Sheftel notes that the 2022 election produced a clear parliamentary majority determined to rein in judicial tyranny, but street protests and systemic resistance stalled the reform.
The Court’s decision to strike down the reasonableness amendment during the height of the war against Hamas laid bare its institutional brazenness, leaving Sheftel confident that another right-wing electoral victory will decisively dismantle this judicial dictatorship.
