Will 'conservative' justices deliver for the Israeli right?
Right-wing Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked's declarations of victory in getting conservatives appointed to the Supreme Court might be premature.
In the political language of the media, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked waged one of the most brilliant campaigns of the past few years in marketing three out of the four new justices selected to serve on the Supreme Court as a “conservative revolution.” Her public relations machine moved with pinpoint precision on the evening of their selection, Feb. 22. After three months of political infighting and heated legal battles, Shaked scored a victory with the selection of two justices identified with the religious right, Yael Willner and David Mintz, as well as a third of Mizrahi origins, Yosef Elron. The fourth justice, George Karra, is a Christian Arab.
"We made history!” a jubilant Shaked celebrated on her Facebook page the night the new justices were announced, marking her victory over the elitist legal establishment personified by Supreme Court Justice Miriam Naor. In an interview with Channel 10, Shaked said, “For so many years, the judges that were chosen tended to be more compatible with a liberal approach, yet I didn't hear any heart-wrenching cries about that. This time, we, the politicians on the committee, represented the agenda for which we were elected, as it should be in a democratic state.”
It is impossible to minimize the importance of the Supreme Court and its justices in Israel, a country without a written constitution. The court's rulings serve as the society's conscience and moral compass, establishing the basis of the country's values as represented by the vision set out in the 1948 Declaration of Independence by its founders, who hoped to establish a democratic Jewish state with equality for all its citizens.
That is why the possibility that Shaked would change the natural order of things, transforming the Supreme Court into an emasculated, conservative body that acts in the spirit of the settlers and the right, should be worrisome at the very least. It is especially troublesome against the backdrop of the anti-democratic steamroller of recent Knesset legislation and government actions.
