Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann says the High Court is stepping outside its authority in certain issues and says he plans to propose legislation to remedy the situation.
Friedmann's proposal would bar the court from interfering in decisions made by the Attorney General (AG) with regard to the legality of plea bargains.
The real target is the High Court's deliberations on whether to approve the deal signed this summer by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's office and former President Moshe Katzav.
The agreement with Katzav, which must be approved by the court, would drop a rape charge and instead allow the former president to plead guilty to lesser sexual assault charges, enabling him to avoid a possible jail term.
Friedmann says he may also propose legislation to limit the court's ability to adjudicate foreign policy, security decisions and fundamental budgetary policy.
"The court is dealing with issues it shouldn't be dealing with," Friedman told a Netanya College conference over the weekend at Neve Ilan.
"The idea that during a military operation, people should run to the court and ask it to halt [the operation] because they claim the commander isn't attacking properly is a bit excessive," he said.
Dr. Yitzchak Klein, director of the Israel Policy Center, writes that there are indeed certain matters that should be decided by the Ministry of Justice – but also that there are other issues that fall within the realm of legality as determined by the court.
"The most important [of Friedmann's proposals]….. is a law that would prevent the courts—and in effect any legal authority, including Mr. Mazuz—to intervene in national security and foreign policy decisions. This law as written would also prevent interference in basic decisions of budgetary policy."
Policy decisions such as whether the State of Israel should cut off power to Gaza as a means to responding to Kassam rocket attacks, said Klein, should be a security decision made by the government.
Such a decision should not be made by the Attorney General, who job it is to deal with legal issues as legislated by the Knesset rather than government policy, he said.
The issue of whether a plea bargain signed between the Attorney General and attorneys for former President Katzav, however, does rest with the court, said Klein, who underscored the need to separate the issues of policy from legal decisions made on the basis of laws already passed by the Knesset.
"The exercise of judgment by any state official in a matter touching on individual liberty must be subject to judicial review," said Klein. "Nobody whatsoever should be allowed to exercise the power of impugning the honesty of an individual or putting him through the ordeal of a trial without appropriate checks and balances, which the courts must provide. We believe this initiative by Minister Friedman is wrong."
The issue, said Klein, comes back to the separation of who should determine policy, and who should have jurisdiction over legal issues.
"Minister Friedman is right to defend the right of the people to determine, through its elected representatives, fundamental questions about how society is to be governed and how it is to be defended. These are political questions in which the courts properly have no say. He is wrong in proposing to give any appointed official the right to make decisions about people's liberties without appropriate judicial checks and balances," he added.