The supreme court versus the political system: a balance of power (1999–2007)

Since 1997, the Court has made several activist moves in which it invalidated various Knesset laws. For example, in 1999, the High Court panel of eleven judges ruled that a clause to a law that contradicted the Basic Law: Dignity of Man and Liberty was invalid (Sagi Tzemach, first filed in 1995). In March 2002, in the Oron v. Chairman of the Knesset case (first filed in 1999), the Court ruled that an amendment to the Bezeq Law, which was designed to legitimize the pirate broadcast signals of Channel 7, was invalid, claiming that it violated the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. Three years later, in September 2005, the High Court ruled invalid the Intifada Law (an amendment to the Civil Damages Law), which denied Palestinians who live in the occupied territories the right to sue for damages in Israel (Adalla and others v. Minister of Defense and others, 2005). An additional ruling was made to abolish a number of clauses in the Disengagement Application Program Law, 2005, known as the Evacuation Compensation Law (Gaza Coast Regional Council et al. v. The Knesset et al., 2005).