“The new law eliminates courts’ power to overturn decisions by Israel’s Cabinet or its ministers that they find to be “extremely unreasonable,” a vague-sounding standard that has a more technical meaning in Israeli law. In the simplest terms, the reasonableness doctrine allows the courts to overturn policies when the government can’t prove that its decisions were made according to some basic standards of fair and just policymaking.
Such a standard for judicial review might seem overbroad in the United States. But it’s actually relatively common internationally, and Israel in particular has a need for it: The country lacks a formal constitution, significant separation of executive and legislative powers, and a federal system. The courts are basically the only check on decisions made by the elected government — and the current government, a far-right coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is trying to weaken the judiciary’s powers and pack it with ideologically friendly jurists.
Eliminating reasonableness review of Cabinet decisions is “only part of a far bigger plan to gut checks on executive power in Israel,” writes Natan Sachs, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. Other components of this plan are currently waiting in the wings, likely next steps for the government in the coming weeks and months. If they too are passed, Sachs writes, Netanyahu’s government would possess “the ability to do almost anything.””
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“Reasonableness is not the only tool Israeli courts have to overturn government policies; its elimination marks an increase in government power, but it is hardly the end of judicial review. By passing this reform alone, rather than packaged with even more radical components of the initial overhaul, Netanyahu lowered the risk of defections from his four-vote majority. (The new law passed 64-0, after opposition lawmakers walked out of the vote in protest.)”
https://www.vox.com/2023/7/24/23805532/israel-judicial-overhaul-reasonableness