The Knesset Committee on Legislation in Israel decided May 6 unanimously to move forward the “override clause,” a first step before the bill is voted on by the Knesset plenum. If it becomes law, it would be the greatest assault on Israeli democracy in its 70 years of existence.

Ministers from all coalition parties rejected the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to postpone their vote to another date and passed the most severe version of the bill, according to which a decision of the High Court of Justice could be nullified by a vote of 61 out of 120 Knesset members. If the law is passed, there would no longer be any significance to a High Court decision that a certain law is unconstitutional because it disproportionally injures the rights of an individual. In fact, the Knesset would have the right to legislate injurious laws with the knowledge that the High Court does not have the power to annul them.

The override clause is an amendment to the 1992 Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, supposedly allowing the Knesset to nullify High Court decisions. The significance of this power is the potential to gravely harm the rights of minorities in Israel — in other words, the Arabs. The law allows the Knesset — for the first time in Israeli history — to expel a current member with 90 votes. It targets and is employed against Arab parliamentarians, even though the language of the law does not mention Arabs at all.

The grave damage to democracy stems from the following: In Israel, great authority is given to the executive branch (the government). Since it is a parliamentary democracy, there is no government without a majority in the Knesset, and there is no Knesset where the coalition does not set its agenda and supervise its legislation. Most heads of Knesset committees belong to coalition parties, and thus the extent of parliamentary oversight on government activities is very limited. The independence of the judicial branch — alongside the free press — is what ensures the rights of minorities. Democracy in Israel and elsewhere is comprised of two sides: the rule of the majority and the rights of the minority. If the judicial branch is made subservient to a Knesset majority, which reflects the will of the government, democracy would lose the second component.