Likud MK claims a High Court justice leaked judicial reform verdict

MK Tally Gotliv sharply attacked the judges who intended to vote in favor of rejecting the reasonableness law, and claimed that she knows who leaked the draft.

 MK Tally Gotliv arrives to a court hearing on petitions against the government's "Reasonableness Bill", at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, September 12, 2023. (photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
MK Tally Gotliv arrives to a court hearing on petitions against the government's "Reasonableness Bill", at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, September 12, 2023.
(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Following a leaked report regarding a draft judgement showing that the High Court intended to reverse the reasonableness law, Likud MK Tally Gotliv sharply attacked the judges who intended to vote in favor of rejecting the law, claiming that she knows who leaked the draft.

"The same Supreme Court judge who leaked the draft judgment, and it is clear to me that this is a judge, would not have the courage to not sign the judgment and thus postpone its publication," Gotliv tweeted on her X account. "While we are burying our heroic soldiers, the Supreme Court is bringing division back into the public discourse. Shame.”

Supreme Court judges sharply criticized Esther Hayut

Several Supreme Court judges claimed that retiring President Esther Hayut pushed them into an impossible timetable and that without the opinions of Hayut and fellow judge Anat Baron, who retired in October, the result would have been 7-6 against disqualification instead of 8-7 in favor.

 SUPREME COURT President Esther Hayut is flanked by other justices at the High Court hearing on the reasonableness standard law, last week. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
SUPREME COURT President Esther Hayut is flanked by other justices at the High Court hearing on the reasonableness standard law, last week. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

The majority opinion in the draft judgment includes Baron, Hayut, and judges Yitzhak Amit, Ofer Grosskopf, Khaled Kabob, Uzi Fogelman, Dafna Barak-Erez, and Ruth Ronen. A minority opinion in the draft verdict includes judges Yehiel Kosher, Noam Solberg, Yosef Elron, Alex Stein, Yael Wilner, David Mintz, and Gila Knafi-Steinitz.

The decision to abolish the reasonableness law was approved by the Knesset at the end of July. The law was enacted as part of an amendment to the "Basic Law: The Judiciary," and deprives the court of the ability to intervene in government decisions that were made with "extreme unreasonableness."

The court's intervention in such cases is intended to invalidate decisions made in an irrational, unequal or conflict-of-interest manner.