TEL AVIV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th July, 2023) Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest against the controversial judicial reform of the Israeli government on the 28th consecutive Saturday, a Sputnik correspondent has reported.
The organizers of the Saturday demonstrations announced protests at 150 different locations across Israel. In Tel Aviv alone, about 150,000 people have gathered, according to Crowd Solutions estimates. Overall, about 400,000 people are protesting across Israel on Saturday, organizers of the protests said.
Demonstrations have intensified in Israel this week after the parliament's (Knesset) on Monday passed in the first reading one of the key clauses of the reform, curbing the Supreme Court's power to cancel decisions made by the government by ruling them unreasonable. If the bill goes into effect, the government will get more power when promoting its decisions and electing officials.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the government would drop the most controversial part of the judicial reform designed to enable the parliament to override the rulings of the Supreme Court.
At the same time, the Israeli prime minister said that the government and the opposition had been unable to agree on basic provisions of the reform for months, which would possibly prompt the government to advance the legislation unilaterally.
The draft law is intended to shake up the judiciary in Israel. If adopted, it could curtail the Supreme Court's power to review and strike down laws that it rules unconstitutional and give the government a greater say in the selection of judges.
