Knesset committee advances bill to restrict Palestinian access to Supreme Court

An Israeli parliamentary committee yesterday approved legislation that would limit Palestinian access to the Supreme Court with regard to land cases, reported the Jerusalem Post.

According to the paper, “the legislation has advanced after a first reading, but needs to return to the plenum for a second and third reading before it becomes law.”

The move is being driven by right-wing Israeli politicians, who argue that the law reduces the court’s caseload, and, more pertinently, “helps normalise land issues in Area C of the West Bank by sending them to district courts, which handle such matters within sovereign Israel”.

Opponents say that the law “is part of a series of steps right-wing politicians have taken to annex the West Bank” and claim that “it will be harder for the Palestinians to access the District Courts”.

Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich praised the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee’s advancement of the bill as “an important stage in the normalisation of settler life by creating an equivalency between legislation for Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank] and that which exists within sovereign Israel”.

Read: Knesset blocks bill defining Israel as ‘country of all citizens’