A First: Israel's High Court September Hearing for Judicial Reform Law Will Include All 15 Justices

JERUSALEM, Israel – The president of Israel's Supreme Court confirmed Monday that all 15 justices will assemble on September 12th to hear a challenge to the recently-passed judicial reform law eliminating the "reasonableness" clause. It's the first time the entire court will hear a case.

The Knesset passed the law last week, 64-0, after the opposition boycotted the vote.

The court's decision to put all the justices on the case delighted the NGO leaders who filed the suit. The Movement for Quality Government issued a statement reading, in part, "This is a historic petition designed to repeal the central law in a series of coup d'etat laws," and added, "The (Supreme Court) president did well to include all the judges of the High Court in this important discussion."

Coalition member Boaz Bismuth from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party strongly disagreed, tweeting, "15 people wearing judges' robes, replacing 120 representatives of the people...this is the end of democracy."

Opposition leaders have demanded that the government freeze all judicial reform legislation until 2025 as a condition for returning to talks, but in a Sunday statement, the Likud Party noted, "Yair Lapid is ready to talk with Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas) without preconditions, but for Likud he is setting out a list of preconditions for talks."

In an interview aired by NBC News on Monday, Netanyahu, who has been doing a series of interviews on U.S. outlets, again refused to say directly whether he would abide by a court decision to strike down the judicial reform law.

“I think we have to follow two rules," the prime minister explained. "One is, Israeli governments abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court. And at the same time, the Supreme Court respects the Basic Laws (including last week's reasonableness law), which are the closest thing we have to a constitution. I think we should keep both principles, and I hope we do.”

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