Hundreds of right-wing activists participated on Wednesday evening in a “freedom march” led by the Im Tirtzu organization, which concluded with a demonstration outside the home of former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak in Tel Aviv.
Matan Jerafi, the coordinator of the Im Tirtzu movement, said, "The time has come for Aharon Barak to understand that he must not trample on the people's decision. The people chose judicial reform, and this is what needs to happen."
In an interview during Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday, Barak called for the protests against the judicial reform to continue.
Barak, who served as Supreme Court President between 1995 and 2006, first coined the term “Constitutional Revolution”.
Barak's approach, which was adopted by the Supreme Court and widely criticized over the years, says that the Constitutional Revolution brought values such as the Right to Equality, Freedom of Employment and Freedom of Speech to a position of normative supremacy, and thereby granted the courts (not just the Supreme Court) the ability to strike down legislation which is inconsistent with the rights embodied in the Basic Laws.
Consequently, Barak held that the State of Israel has been transformed from a parliamentary democracy to a constitutional parliamentary democracy, in that its Basic Laws were to be interpreted as its constitution.
He has been a vocal opponent of the government’s proposed judicial reform, warning in a recent interview that Justice Minister Yariv Levin is “suffocating Israeli democracy”.
The protest outside Barak’s home is an initiative that joins a series of demonstrations by the Im Tirtzu movement against figures who are leading the protest against the reform.
About a month ago, citizens demonstrated, at the organization's initiative, outside the homes of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.