Big Shopping Centers (TASE: BIG) plans to close all of its malls this Tuesday. The company announced this morning that if the Knesset passes the bill abolishing the reasonableness test in judicial review of executive decisions in its current form tomorrow, all of its positions from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat will be closed, and that the company intends to take further action. Measures as legislation progresses.
“The large group declares that if the bill to abolish Reasonable Cause for Action passes first reading on Monday in the Knesset in its current form, we will consider it a serious step towards clearly illegal and corrupt behavior by the government, and another step towards dictatorship.” “Legislation like this would represent a decisive blow to commercial and economic confidence in Israel, and would directly and immediately jeopardize our very existence as a leading company in Israel.
“In order to protest in an exceptional way and prevent the passage of this corrupt legislation, we will participate in the strike day planned for Tuesday. Large centers from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat will be closed. When the country shakes and sways. Torn from within, we cannot sit on the fence, when necessary, and as legislation And plundering the public money we finance, we will escalate our measures.”
Tomorrow (Monday), the full Knesset will vote in its first hearing on a bill to restrict the application of the reasonableness test to decisions of the executive branch of government. What the bill means is that the Supreme Court, as the supreme court of justice, will not be able to interfere with the decisions of the government, cabinet ministers or other elected officials, which are unreasonable in the extreme.
Leaders of the anti-judiciary protest reform movement have announced that if the legislation passes tomorrow, Tuesday will be declared Resistance Day, with demonstrations and unrest across the country. Among other things, a massive demonstration is scheduled at Ben Gurion Airport at 4 p.m.
In March, Big Shopping Centers was one of the first to announce it would close in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after Gallant called for delaying judicial reform legislation to allow for talks between the government and the opposition. The dismissal sparked massive protests, and the head of the Histadrut (General Confederation of Labor in Israel) called for a public sector strike. One by one, Israeli companies announced they would be suspending operations, in an unprecedented day of strikes. After that, Netanyahu abdicated and Galant remained in office.
Last night, on the 27th consecutive Saturday evening, there were demonstrations across Israel against the judicial reform plan. Crowd Solutions, in an assessment by Channel 13 TV, estimated the crowd in Tel Aviv at 140,000. Police cleared protesters who tried to block the Ayalon Highway using water cannons. Families of the dead Israeli army soldiers demonstrated in front of the military headquarters in Tel Aviv with a display showing the names of the soldiers and the slogan “In vain”.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on July 9, 2023.
© Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2023.
