Tova Strasberg-Cohen
Tova Strasberg-CohenIsraeli courts

Former High Court Justice Tova Strasberg-Cohen slammed the national camp for wanting to change the Supreme Court, claiming that the Supreme Court's decisions reflect the fact that the majority of the judges' worldviews are leftist liberal.

In an interview with Kol Israel Radio, Strasberg-Cohen said, "The right is attempting to harm democracy. They want to appoint judges who understand their perspective, they want the judges to be a mini-Knesset, and think the Supreme Court should represent different political streams."

"It's true that the justice system is totalitarian. In communist Russia, Stalin had to get every new law approved by the court.

"This [idea of the right's] is an irregular way of doing things which harms democracy and is inappropriate for a democratic country. The Supreme Court is protecting human rights and Israel's democracy. You cannot run a democratic country without allowing criticism of the government.

"I understand governments do not like to be criticized. In a democratic country, you cannot have a government which is not criticized by an objective body which checks, objectively, the government's actions.

"Such a government should never have been elected and should never have been anyone's choice. The government needs to be true to the country's values, founding laws, and its identification as a democratic country," she said..

Israel's Supreme Court is highly leftist and politicized, according to the Right, and tends to strike down any law which is not to their liking.

Justices have been chosen, up to now, by a committee where the presiding justices have the power to veto any candidate whose views differ from theirs and have done so time and time again, perhaps the most well known instance being that of Hebrew University Professor and Israel Prize Laureate [for legal research] Ruth Gavison.