Israel Matzav

'Supreme Court' to throw out anti-boycott law?

Israel's Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in a challenge to the watered down anti-boycott law that was passed by the Knesset in July 2011. The law imposes sanctions on any individual or entity that calls for an economic boycott of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank or of Israel itself. This description of the hearing bothered me greatly.

At the time the law was passed, Knesset legal adviser Eyal Yinon warned the Knesset plenum that the legislation was "borderline illegal" since it could violate freedom of political expression.

Even Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein reportedly called it "borderline" defensible and admitted in defending the law that it had serious problems.

Weinstein's main argument for not striking it down yet was that the law has never been used, as opposed to making any positive legal arguments in its favor.

At Wednesday's hearing, Yinon partially reversed himself, formally defending the law on behalf of the Knesset.

Yet, his defense was at most lukewarm. The court questioned him sharply how he could defend the law when he himself had "almost killed" the law.

Yinon responded that he still disagreed with the law and thought it should have been drafted differently, but that ultimately he had to defer to the Knesset, which was not bound even by his opinion as legal adviser.

According to Yinon, once the Knesset had voted, his job was to represent the Knesset.

Yinon is right. He's not a party. A lawyer's job is to advocate for his client, whether or not he agrees with the client.  The court's line of questioning is completely inappropriate and attempts to take advantage of the fact that Yinon's client is a public body and not a private entity.

Something smells rotten here. I look for the law to be thrown out. Hopefully, the Knesset will overcome the inevitable hysteria and pass another law that overrules the court. It's been a long time since that's happened in our court-dominated tyranny, but the Knesset is supposed to have the power to overrule the court in the Israeli legal system.

Labels: anti-boycott bill, Israeli Knesset, Supreme Court

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:56 PM