The Attorney General told the Knesset's Interior Committee Monday that he will not allow it to override a High Court ruling that knocked the teeth out of the Infiltrators Law. The court decided two weeks ago to annul key clauses in the law and force the closure of a Negev detention facility created at great cost for the infiltrators.
Interior Minister Gidon Sa'ar (Likud) told the committee that he supports legislation that would enable the Knesset to veto court rulings that knock down the Knesset's law - like the decisions that disqualified the Infiltrators Law, twice.
In response, Deputy AG Dina Zilber said that AG Yehuda Weinstein will oppose such legislation.
In Israel, the Attorney General doubles as the Legal Advisor for the Government and can basically decide the government's policy on legislation even if a majority of ministers holds the opposite view.
"It is convenient to go to a court that adopts your views,” Zilber chided Sa'ar. “But it is not a rubber stamp. In is one of the regime's most valued assets. It is fine to criticize it, and the court is not monolithic. The body that gave the court the authority to strike down laws is the Knesset and therefore, there is no reason to be angry about it.”
Zilber added that the AG “would not lend his hand to diminishing the authority of the High Court.”
MK Merav Michaeli (Labor) told representatives of Tel Aviv's working class neighborhood residents, who suffer most from the flood of illegal infiltrators, that nationalists are leading them astray and inciting them. The real problems facing southern Tel Aviv are lack of public housing and plane routes that pass over their heads, not "3,000 people who will be detained without trial at the Holot facility."
The Holot detainment center was built at great cost to hold illegal aliens prior to their departure from Israel. The court has ordered it closed.
Activist May Golan led a march Sunday by residents of southern Tel Aviv, where tens of thousands of the infiltrators stay, in protest of the High Court ruling. Golan said that the residents are taking down the Israeli flag and flying the black flag in protest of the "dictatorship" of “bagatz” – the Hebrew acronym for the High Court for Justice.