Response: Recent Development regarding Judicial Review of Legislative Process in Israel

Abstract

Abstract In an article published recently in the Statue Law Review,1 Prof. Shucheng Wang has examined the deferential approach to judicial review of the legislative process as adopted by the CFA,2 due to the Leung3 case. In this short response, I focus on two issues that are not mentioned in Prof. Wang’s article but that are crucial for understanding recent developments concerning judicial review of the legislative process in Israel by Israel’s High Court of Justice (HCJ). First, this response will present the most recent, and more crucial, ruling of the HCJ from late 2017 in the Quantinsky v. The Israeli Knesset (2017)4 which established a new precedent and in which, for the first time in Israel’s history, a new law was invalidated due to flaws in the legislative process. Second, I wish to emphasize the specific type of law that was invalidated and that is more prone to flaws in the legislative process: The Omnibus Law of Arrangement in the State Economy, which includes hundreds of budget statutes, and is characterized by a very unique and hasty legislative process. Therefore, this response wishes to complement Prof. Wang’s thesis and provide an update regarding the Israeli HCJ judicial approach of due process of legislation.