Legislative Initiatives to Change the Judicial System are Unnecessary

Numerous initiatives aimed at weakening the judicial system in Israel have become increasingly prominent on the public agenda. These include concrete initiatives to deny/circumvent the authority of the Supreme Court to disqualify Knesset legislation. This article argues that such initiatives are unnecessary, given the constitutional dialogue between the Supreme Court and the Knesset already in place. In the decisive majority of cases, the Court permits a political response to its rulings, and for this reason occasionally even avoids interfering in matters. For its part, the Knesset has the effective ability to confront a Supreme Court ruling and respond to it, which it indeed has done in practice. Based on an empirical and extensive study, the article illustrates how this dialogue is conducted, and shows that the existing constitutional process involves all the governing authorities.