About a year ago I came to one of the hospitals with a relative who felt pains in his chest. While my relative groaned in pain on one of the seats, I went to the nurse in charge in Emergency and told her the story. The nurse said "Wait" without looking at him and without checking his situation. After a while, I circumvented her and approached someone else in Emergency. He told me that all the beds were taken and that we would have to wait. I approached him a second time and asked whether they could at least do an ECG on him in the meanwhile. After a bit of persuading, he agreed. The examination indicated a deviation from the norm, and he said we would have to wait for a blood test. From time to time I went up to the nurse in charge and asked her whether she remembered that we were waiting, and she fobbed me off without looking at me, and certainly without looking at the patient. After a few hours, we received a call from Emergency: "Where are you? Come immediately." I won’t make it a long tale. I’ll just say that after two days and countless pleas my relative underwent catheterization that indicated an almost 100% blocked artery.
This little story is the story of public services in Israel. Collapse or very poor functioning characterizes almost every area. Obtaining a building permit, an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, a passport, pre-medical care in the special education system, public housing, or your day in court - the system is failing.
Lost focus
Anyone who thinks that the legal system functions in exemplary fashion is deluding themselves and lives in fantasy land. Civil proceedings go on for years, as do criminal cases. The judges are inundated with them. A person or company holding someone else’s money can wear them down with no real sanction, and the wrongdoer gets away with it time after time. Years can go by before a person is convicted of a criminal offence. Adults fear to intervene in fights between youths in case they are murdered. There is no deterrence. There’s law, but not exactly order.
In the nature of things, the reform proposed by Minster of Justice Yariv Levin has aroused a general storm. Ever since he presented it, it seems to me as if the whole country has come to a halt, and everyone is preoccupied from morning to night with the override clause or the reasonability test or the make-up of the committee that selects judges.
In principle, and in their general outline, I identify with the measures that Levin is introducing. I have plenty of reservations, and I think that the reform is insufficiently baked and in some ways goes too far, but generally speaking it’s justified. Even if there’s disagreement about the details, in my humble opinion it’s hard to deny the need for change.
But the focus has been completely lost. There’s certainly room for discussion about the status of legal advisers in government ministries, and about the reasonability test for administrative actions, the override clause, public hearings for candidates for the Supreme Court, and whether it’s right that the ruling coalition should have a majority on the committee to select judges. But while we’re arguing about the topping, the bread and butter of the system are forgotten and not dealt with at all.
If Levin wants to gain the public’s favor, I recommend that he should deal with the matters that really affect the public daily. The most urgent and most desperately needed reform is dramatic shortening and streamlining of civil cases. Equally important is reform to deal with the endless foot-dragging in criminal proceedings, which harms deterrence and enforcement, and causes distress and perhaps even false admissions of guilt.
Better to learn Greek
The unending fuss about the tension between the government and the High Court of Justice looks out of all proportion when one considers the total neglect of the problems and difficulties in everyday proceedings.
In this context, I cannot ignore a statement by former president of the Supreme Court Aharon Barak. In among the media interviews he has given sounding the alarm, he told Baruch Kara of Channel 13 News that were he still sitting on the court he would resign if Levin’s reform passed. "I would resign," he said. "I would have nothing to do there. If my sole task is to do the bidding of the government, of the prime minister, of the Knesset, I have no independent existence. I’d prefer to sit and learn Greek."
In 2019, when all that was at stake was the override clause to enable the Knesset to re-enact laws struck down by the Supreme Court, former court president Barak said he would consider resigning. "If I were a Supreme Court judge in a situation like this, or if I were president, I would consider reigning. Why not? What have I to do there? The main task of the Supreme Court is to defend democracy and to defend the constitution. It cannot defend democracy and cannot defend the constitution if it has no tools with which to do so."
These remarks of former Supreme Court president Barak are nothing less than astonishing. If the reasonableness test of administrative decisions is abolished, or if the Knesset is allowed to legislate an override clause, there is no point in being a Supreme Court judge. The job is redundant. Better to study Greek, because there’s nothing to do there. The contemptuous and shameful attitude to the bread and butter of the system - deciding civil disputes and judging those accused of crimes - is not a slip of the pen. That’s how public discourse has been conducted for many years.
When demonstrators cried out to Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion that they were in need of bread, he responded, "I don’t have bread; I do have a vision." Without a doubt, a fine quote, but the public cannot be left hungry for bread.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 17, 2023.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2023.