It דווקא seems to me that I did separate between the hat that checks whether government activity is legal or not, and the hat that checks whether Knesset legislation is moral or not. As for the first hat, nobody disputes that this is the role of the judicial system without any question at all (including, if there is a constitution or if the Basic Laws are a constitution, checking the legality of legislation).

But evaluative “reasonableness” seemingly has nothing to do with the judicial system. The judicial system has no tools for determining whether something is value-based or not. And regarding the claim, “Who will balance the government so it doesn’t run wild?”—that itself is exactly what I asked about.
True, that is a good question, but the answer cannot be so arbitrary. Just because there is no one to balance the government, the court becomes the balancer?
Would you agree to hear the following answer to the question of what to do if the surgeons go on strike? Then the judges will take the surgeons’ scalpels and operate? Even if the question is good (and it really isn’t such a good question), that does not guarantee that the answer is good (and in our case it certainly is not).

The judicial branch can stop the government from committing illegal acts.
Only an appointment by the Knesset of some authority (for all I care, the workers’ committee of the Israel Electric Corporation) can give power to review legislation.

As I understand it, there is something strange going on here. It is like a person standing by the side of the road and deciding who may cross and when, because in his opinion it is dangerous there (and indeed he is right in his claim). But! Nobody asked him, and nobody appointed him to that role.

And regarding government control: I really do not understand, and if you could elaborate more, why you see it this way:
“But the government is part of the Knesset, and the fate of the members of Knesset is in its hands.”
This is a completely unclear sentence. What “fate” of the members of Knesset is in the hands of the government? Do you mean that since the prime minister can fire a minister, therefore the minister, wearing his hat as an MK, will vote against his conscience? I find it hard to accept this as a working assumption to the point of concluding that the government controls the Knesset and not vice versa. And do you think it would actually be preferable to require by law the “Norwegians” to remain without the ability to return once a minister is appointed, in order to prevent government control over the Knesset?

I answered this briefly. There is no other institution whose role is to do this, and common sense says there has to be something like this (otherwise the government can run wild and use its very great power as it wishes). Therefore it seems entirely reasonable to me that the court takes this role upon itself. In Dworkin, this even gets formalized.
I would not agree to the director-general of the Histadrut doing it, but the court is a natural candidate until a constitutional court, supreme house, or something of that sort is established. There is such a thing as common sense.
The Knesset cannot distribute powers or revoke them however it wants. First, because it too is not a constituent authority, and second because there are limits on its role and its power, as I wrote in my last column (A Philosophical Look at the Current Disputes), and also in several before it.
As for government control over the Knesset, there is nothing to elaborate on. Anyone who does not understand this is either a fool or being disingenuous. Either way, there is no point discussing it. Many good people have already written about it at length, and in my opinion there is no dispute about it.

Can the Knesset not topple governments, and therefore it controls the government?

Of course it can. That is a simple fact, and I wrote it. But in practice this can hardly happen, because the government has complete control over the Knesset. Also because when the government falls, the Knesset itself is usually dissolved as well (unless an alternative coalition is formed), and because members of Knesset belong to parties that make up the government and depend on members of the government in order to receive positions (ministers and deputy ministers, head of the Jewish Agency, ambassador to the UN, JNF, the Jewish Agency, the Central Bureau of Statistics, etc.). The absurdity goes so far that the prime minister determines the committee chairs in the Knesset and their distribution among the parties. And we have not even spoken about the Norwegians. This is how Bibi can hand out positions to witnesses in his trial, like Yariv Levin and Tzachi Hanegbi, without anyone uttering a peep.
Even when the Knesset did bring down a government, it happened because of a few individual MKs who got angry for one reason or another and whose dependence on the prime minister stopped or was not strong enough, and they defected to another party. So even that is not really an action of the Knesset as an institution against the government, but a betrayal by a coalition member (which can be for reasons like Goldfarb’s Mitsubishi or weakness and yielding to personal pressures like Idit Silman). An exception to this is, for example, Amichai Chikli.

That doesn’t matter. It is obvious that in order to achieve stability you have to buy off MKs. That has always been true. But the fact that the government depends on MKs not getting upset or not reaching the conclusion that it is leading the country to ruin restrains it a great deal. So from a logical standpoint, the claim that the Knesset depends on the government is very, very strange. In the end, the government represents the will of the majority in the Knesset, not the other way around.

Exactly so, from a logical-conceptual standpoint. In practice, it is the opposite, as I wrote.

Sorry if I’m being a pest, but I really couldn’t understand. Are you claiming that the judicial system will restrain the government because that’s what you want, even though I don’t want that?
It seems very strange to me that a body the sovereign did not authorize to restrain the government will restrain the government just because some people think that would be proper. Legally there is a very serious defect here, as far as I understand.
How will it be decided whether the Knesset is running wild? By what standards? This is a completely subjective opinion, and only one who received authority from the sovereign can be in such a position. A situation in which there is no check on the Knesset except by the sovereign every 4 years or by revolt in the streets is dozens of times preferable to giving such a tiny minority control over the sovereign.

And I really do not accept the treatment of the government as controlling the Knesset. Even if in reality you see reciprocity and influence, that is exactly equal to the claim that the prime minister’s wife controls him. Whether it is true or not, that is his choice. Even if she really does control him, that is exactly the people’s choice.

All right, I’ll try anyway to explain a bit more. Let us assume that what happened in Poland a few years ago happened here. A plane crashed and all the members of Knesset and the government died. After a holiday is declared and we celebrate, what should we do? I assume we would act as they did in Poland: the court would take the reins of government into its hands and organize orderly elections in order to reestablish all the institutions. In the meantime, it would also be the executive and legislative branch. Let us assume for the sake of discussion that our law contains no reference whatsoever to such a situation. One could ask there too: who appointed you? By what authority are you taking the reins of government without the legislature having authorized you?
The answer would be: common sense. There is an existing governing institution, and now it is the only one. Naturally it takes all the reins into its hands until it succeeds in reorganizing the system. Why shouldn’t the clerks’ union do it? Or the sailors’ union? Because the existing governing institution is the natural candidate for this, and that is the court.
Before you yell at me, I am not comparing the situations. But this example shows that there are situations in which common sense says authority should be given to an existing institution even though the law does not give it that authority.
If there is a government that is running wild, and even if the entire public agrees that it is running wild and acting improperly, then apparently nobody has authority to remove or replace it until the next elections. In principle, that same government could also decide that there will be no more elections, and everything is fine. Would you agree there that someone has to restrain that government? Either the court, or the public with rifles, or the army with weapons. Why? Because that is common sense, even though the law did not establish such a route.
Now the question arises: what do you do when there are disagreements about whether the government is in fact running wild or not? That really is not a simple question. But you understand that the answer to it is not simple either. Those who believe the government is running wild are not prepared to act according to the law, even though others think it is not running wild. The court is supposed to exercise judgment to the best of its understanding (while also taking into account the fact that there are disagreements), and act accordingly. It is possible that this action will turn out to be improper, and perhaps they are biased, but as long as they are using their best judgment it is legitimate. Especially when we do not have rules of the game, and therefore it is hard to speak in the name of the rules of the game. When there are no rules of the game and one of the actors (the government) takes them into its own hands without authority, I can definitely understand why the court decides to intervene even without authority. That is so even if a significant part of the public does not think so.
Let me also mention Dworkin’s principles, according to which there are principles that were never enacted but are still binding just like enacted laws (I will discuss this in the next column). Think of moral principles under the Nazi regime. In the Nuremberg trials, officials and officers were prosecuted legally even though they obeyed their own law. According to your approach, that cannot be, since the authorization of the law in Germany did not permit doing that. By virtue of what were they prosecuted? Can American law serve as the basis for prosecuting German civilians and soldiers? Common sense says there are principles that bind even without being enacted. Who will determine this? After all, the Germans themselves disagreed, and who appointed you to determine it for them?! Common sense will determine it.
I once brought here Chen Maanit’s example of a local authority that decides to place the city’s garbage concentration next to my house. For no reason at all. There are better and more successful places, and there is no need for it whatsoever. There is no municipal law forbidding this, and the authority has the power to place the garbage wherever it wants. The value of my house drops to grass level, and my quality of life below that. Do you think it is not reasonable to allow a court to intervene? Do you think one should wait for the legislature to turn its attention to this case (if it decides to do so at all)? Or perhaps I should run as a candidate in the council elections and try to persuade the public that the council made an improper decision? In my opinion this is an unreasonable decision and it should be canceled. Who will do that? There is a court, and it is the natural candidate for that. Not the sailors’ union and not the firefighters’ committee.
In short, life is far more complicated than the simple and formalistic picture you are painting here.

As for government control over the Knesset, I will not go back to that again. I already said that you are clinging to theoretical and conceptual slogans and ignoring the situation in practice.

Indeed, the urge to shout against this outrageous comparison is immense!
The Knesset, which is the sovereign, decided in the name of the sovereign, and someone with no authority whatsoever from the sovereign will nullify that.
I’ll say it and not deny it: it is very painful that there are those who think such an act is common sense!
61 public representatives (at least)—representing millions—think this is proper, while a few individuals think it is not proper (and it is even possible that they are right, but on the other hand it is also obvious that they may not be right). How can the possibility that maybe the individual is right give certain power to nullify the choice of the representatives of millions?
With all due respect, there is such a simple logical failure here!

The possible examples of some failure in the democratic system (Chen Maanit / Nazis…) do not give legitimacy to act against the decision of the majority except in a certain case of a moral failure of the majority. And such a situation cannot be determined by the subjective opinion of individuals unless they received a manifestly illegal order and are permitted, indeed presumed, to refuse it (again, only with respect to the act they are supposed to do), but it cannot be that a minority will determine for the majority on a completely subjective issue.

And regarding Chen Maanit: as far as I understand, all individual rights are derived from the consent of the majority. For example, there is no property right that does not in essence ride on the consent of the majority. And when a state decides that the public good requires expropriating property, it indeed does so.
Therefore there may be an improper decision by an elected official, but there is no situation in which a subjective individual can nullify it without having been authorized to do so by the majority.
Surely you would agree that if you and I decide to establish a judicial system (and not a workers’ committee of the Israel Electric Corporation), a serious one with professors from academia and brilliant jurists, it will have no authority because the sovereign did not authorize it for that.

To sum up:
No one except the owner can determine anything for the owner, even if it seems to him more just.
The attempt to fix the deficiency in the democratic system creates a greater distortion and a crying injustice.

And regarding the Knesset,
I really do not understand your pair of claims. Would you extract money from a person based on this sort of claim?
Suppose Reuven owes money to Shimon, and you see that Levi does everything with his property that Reuven tells him or asks him to do with it.
Would you collect Reuven’s debt to Shimon from Levi’s property?

Thank you in advance for the patience, and this patience definitely matters.
The discussion around this topic could greatly help create peace among the citizens of the state.

You are ignoring the examples I brought. They show you that there are situations in which it is right to act without authority, and that is so even if many think it is proper. In Germany too many thought it was proper, and under Putin as well. I am not comparing, but these are examples that teach the principle. For me this is not only about moral failure but also procedural failure (such as changing the rules of the game without authority).
Regarding Chen Maanit, exactly as you wrote: “in my opinion…” But I will ask you the question you are asking me: who decided that your opinion is the determining one? Thus, for example, the government’s actions now resemble in the eyes of many that same act of placing the garbage by my house, only much more extreme. Therefore, in their view, one should refuse to recognize their validity, whether that means the protesters or the court.
By the way, I absolutely would not agree that the council we establish would have no authority. If it were the most relevant institution and some action were required, I would definitely accept that that institution should carry it out.

I did not understand. In your opinion, can the institution we establish act morally, from your perspective, even though it did not receive authority from the people (the majority of the people)? Do you really think it is upright and proper to act this way, that a minority which thinks something specific is right should impose it on the majority that thinks otherwise?

And I did not ignore the examples. I addressed them explicitly.
The examples present a situation in which the representatives of the sovereign act immorally. That is not a good situation. But it has no remedy.
It is simply not true that because immoral action by the representatives of the sovereign is possible, therefore someone who is not the sovereign will stand above the sovereign and bend the sovereign to his will. That is truly bizarre.

That is equivalent to the chief of staff being subordinate to the head of military intelligence. And when the chief of staff decides on a military operation in a certain way, the head of intelligence sabotages it because it seems to him not to be the right action!
I am really sorry, but from a person for whom logic is a foundational principle of life, I would have expected more.
How did you arrive at such a logical inference?
“It is possible that a government (the representative of the sovereign) will run wild, therefore we will take from the sovereign the decision of what is moral.”
What is this comparable to? To the government reaching into a citizen’s pocket and checking whether what he is buying is proper or not?
True, it is possible that the citizen will not use his money properly, but it is his money!
And by the same token, it is certainly possible that the sovereign will run its state neither wisely nor justly. But it is its state!

How do you not grasp the absurdity of this? Who has the authority to take sovereignty away from the sovereign?
And above all, who possesses the objective and pure scale of values that knows this situation justifies taking away sovereignty, when 61 MKs think otherwise?

I feel that we are just going in circles. And it pains me that you justify arbitrary behavior in taking authority on the basis of a minority’s subjective view in order to prevent the majority from running wild. This is really very far from common sense.

And by the way, the examples of the Nazis, etc., are simply not correct on the practical level. As best I remember from history, military force / terror in the streets (the storm troopers, etc.) are what turned the state into a dictatorship, not the laws.

I answered everything. In my opinion you are just being stubborn. But I’ve exhausted the matter.

You did not answer at all; you are just stubbornly sticking with this arbitrariness (it’s nice to hand out grades).
But you’re right that we’ve exhausted it.
Let us sum up:
In your opinion — because some problem might arise, you are willing for a subjective minority to impose on the majority.
In my opinion — even given the possibility of problems, it is not moral for a subjective minority to seize authority against the will of the majority.

Thank you very much for the time and attention.