Free Republic

Opposition head Yair Lapid has sharply attacked Prime Minister Netanyahu, alleging that he never made clear his intentions to reform the judiciary prior to elections. "Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that millions of people voted in favor of the judicial reforms they are proposing. That's a lie. I won't call him a 'liar, son of a liar' as Smotrich did, but this is a lie stated by someone who is weak and is trying to deceive his voters. "They didn't present these reforms to their voters. They didn't tell them how extreme they would be. They stammered every time they were...

“For years now, Israel has seemed to me like a man sleepwalking toward a cliff. Now we’ve fallen from it.” So proclaimed author Hillel Halkin in a hysterical requiem for Israel published last week in TheJewish Review of Books. Halkin’s metaphorical cliff is the right-religious bloc’s electoral victory on Nov. 1, 2022 and the formation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth government two weeks ago. Halkin explained to his concerned readers that it isn’t that Israel stopped being a democracy on Nov. 1. Far worse. On that day, Israel lost its soul. And Halkin identifies the culprit: Judaism. In language...

WASHINGTON – Kristine Lucius, executive vice president for policy and government affairs at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote to advance the nomination of Daniel Bress (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). “Bress, a young conservative ideologue, is the third nominee to the Ninth Circuit to advance over the objection of both Ranking Member Feinstein and Senator Harris this year alone. This unravelling of a long-established process is part of Trump’s efforts to reshape the courts and, in particular, to remake the Ninth Circuit, which has...

Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann came under a barrage of criticism Wednesday after announcing a set of reforms apparently aimed at increasing the governments' influence on judicial appointments. The Justice Minister suggested far-reaching changes to the way judges and court presidents are appointed, sparking angry responses from both Knesset and the justice establishment. One proposal concerns alterations to the composition of the Judges Election Committee, which is responsible for appointing judges to the Supreme Court. The committee is presently made up of nine members: The justice minister, an additional minister representing the Justice Ministry, the Supreme Court President, two Supreme Court...

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is citing a controversial new book sharply critical of the Supreme Court's judicial activism as the basis for new Republican initiatives on court reform. "As a guide to his views on the subject, DeLay has been urging reporters to read "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America," reports the Washington Post. Written by former Reagan Justice Department official Mark Levin, "Men in Black" details the history of the high court going back to Marbury vs Madison - exposing more than a few members of the exclusive legal club as racists, anti-Semites and...

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=abP2bh88Jrgo&refer=us Schwarzenegger's Punitive Award Fund Part of Budget (Update1) July 29 (Bloomberg) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to take 75 percent of punitive damage awards made it into the state budget in a form that placated trial attorneys and disappointed supporters of tort reform. Schwarzenegger estimates that the state may raise as much as $450 million from the punitive damages fund. That amount might be optimistic because the law applies only to suits filed after the budget is signed and judgments that are paid by June 2006. ``The courts would have to turn into a dry cleaners -- in...