At the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, before which Israel is accused of committing genocide in Gaza, the Israeli government has sent the greatest judge in its recent history. Coming out of retirement at the age of 87, Aharon Barak will take the oath before the highest court of the UN on Thursday, January 11, and will sit alongside the fifteen magistrates of the Court.
This old man, in fragile health, will hear the arguments of the lawyer for South Africa, who filed a complaint, on December 23, 2023, for violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in Paris in 1948, following the Second World War and the birth of the State of Israel, which is a signatory.
Recognized and respected by his peers abroad, Mr. Barak also brings to The Hague the experience of a Holocaust survivor, who fled the Kovno ghetto (today Kaunas), in Lithuania, age 8, in May 1944. Member of the Israeli Supreme Court from 1978, president of this institution for eleven years until 2006, Mr. Barak is considered by a large part of his country as a moral authority. He is seen as the “great rabbi” of the Israeli left.
An architect of the “constitutional revolution” of 1995, he helped establish the defense of fundamental freedoms and human rights in the Fundamental Laws, the embryonic Constitution of his country which never had such a text. He also worked to systematize the supervisory power of judges over the action of the elected majority.
It is this legacy that the ruling right tried to erase in 2023, through a reform supposed to subject the Supreme Court and the government’s legal advisors to the unlimited authority of the elected majority. Throughout the debates, these parliamentarians made Mr. Barak the incarnation of a “Deep State” controlled by judges, police and left-wing media, fueling a violent smear campaign for eight months.
“Consensus in his favor”
Its sending to The Hague, approved by the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, sparked criticism from the Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, who specified that he had not been consulted, as well as from ministers of the extreme religious right, fervent advocates of reform. At the beginning of January, they had already revolted when the Supreme Court refused the first part of their reform, voted on in turmoil in July 2023, thus ending up burying their project. “Despite many disagreements on domestic issues, Mr. Barak has largely acted on behalf of Israel on international issues”greeted Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday. “There was a form of consensus in his favor”specifies his successor at the head of the Supreme Court, Dorit Beinisch.
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