In January 2023, the Israeli government under newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a series of legal reforms that set off a wave of protests and calls of a constitutional crisis. The reforms seek to empower the Israeli legislature, known as the Knesset, to override decisions of the Supreme Court of Israel as well as to control the appointment of justices to the Court, and to limit the power of the Court to review administrative acts. Large-scale rallies and protests across Israel ensued; the protestors and critics, including many lawyers and academics, argue that the reforms undermine judicial independence and threaten Israeli democracy. In this week’s episode, Professor Yuval Shany of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Tom Ginsburg of the University of Chicago join to explain the current situation in Israel and unpack the debate over the proposed reforms; discuss the similarities and differences between the American and Israeli constitutional systems; and how and why the reforms if passed, and taken as a whole, could lead to democratic backsliding. Host Jeffrey Rosen moderates.
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Today’s episode was produced by Lana Ulrich, Bill Pollock, and Sam Desai. It was engineered by Kevin Kilbourne. Research was provided by Sophia Gardell, Emily Campbell, Liam Kerr, Sam Desai, and Lana Ulrich.
Participants
Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in Public International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He currently serves as a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, the Chair of the Hebrew University’s Minerva Center for Human Rights’ academic committee, co-director of the Faculty’s International Law Forum and transitional justice program, and the head of the CyberLaw program of the Hebrew University CyberSecurity Research Center. He co-authored a series of articles about Israel’s constitutional crisis on the legal blog Lawfare.
Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project. His latest book is Democracies and International Law (2021), and his prior books include How to Save a Constitutional Democracy (with Aziz Huq, 2018). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and co-host of the Entitled podcast on human rights.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “The Israeli President’s Plan to End the Constitutional Crisis,” Lawfare (March 27, 2023)
- Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “The Current State of Play in Israel’s Constitutional Showdown, Lawfare (Feb. 23, 2023)
- Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “The End of ‘Reasonable’ Governance in Israel?,” Lawfare (Feb. 22, 2023)
- Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “No More Legal ‘Gatekeepers’? Plans to Downgrade the Status of Government Legal Advisors in Israel,” Lawfare (Feb. 21, 2023)
- Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “The Fight Over Judicial Appointments in Israel,” Lawfare (Feb. 16, 2023)
- Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “Reversing the ‘Constitutional Revolution’: The Israeli Government’s Plan to Undermine the Supreme Court’s Judicial Review of Legislation,” Lawfare (Feb. 15, 2023)
- Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “The New Israeli Government’s ‘Constitutional Law Reforms’: Why now? What do they mean? And what will happen next?,” Lawfare (Feb. 14, 2023)
- “A law professor worries Israel could become the next Hungary,” Jerusalem Post (Jan. 9, 2023)
- Comparative Constitutions Project
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
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