Tag Archives: term limits

New Israeli government seals coalition deals as Netanyahu era approaches its end

By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The new Israeli government set to end Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure as prime minister signed its final coalition agreements on Friday, pointedly including term limits.

The coalition of parties from far-right to left is expected to focus mostly on economic and social issues rather than risk exposing internal rifts by trying to address major diplomatic issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, will be succeeded on Sunday by a coalition that includes for the first time a party from Israel’s Arab minority.

Under a power-sharing agreement, Naftali Bennett, of the ultra-nationalist Yamina (Rightwards) party, will serve as prime minister for two years.

Bennett on Friday said the coalition “brings to an end two and a half years of political crisis,” although it was unclear how long the coalition’s disparate elements would hold together. He will then hand over to Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party.

Among the agreements outlined by parties in what Lapid described as a “unity government” are:

* Limiting the prime minister’s term of office to two terms, or eight years.

* An infrastructure push to include new hospitals, a new university and a new airport.

* Passing a two-year budget to help stabilize the country’s finances – the prolonged political stalemate has left Israel still using a pro-rated version of a base 2019 budget that was ratified in mid-2018.

* Maintaining the “status-quo” on issues of religion and state, with Bennett’s Yamina party to have a veto. Possible reforms include breaking up an ultra-Orthodox monopoly on overseeing which foods are kosher, and decentralizing authority over Jewish conversions.

* An “overall plan for transportation” in the Israeli- occupied West Bank.

* A general goal to “ensure Israel’s interests” in areas of the West Bank under full Israeli control.* Allocating more than 53 billion shekels ($16 billion) to improve infrastructure and welfare in Arab towns, and curbing violent crime there.

* Decriminalizing marijuana and moving to regulate the market.

($1 = 3.2529 shekels)

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Biden forms panel to study possible U.S. Supreme Court expansion

By Andrew Chung and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Friday formed a bipartisan commission to study potential U.S. Supreme Court changes including expanding the number of justices beyond the current nine, a goal of some liberal Democrats hoping to end its conservative majority.

Under an executive order signed by the Democratic president, the 36-member commission would consider the “merits and legality” of potential reforms to the nation’s top judicial body including adding justices or imposing term limits on their service instead of the current lifetime appointments.

The number of Supreme Court justices has remained at nine since 1869, but Congress has the power to change the size of the bench and did so several times before that. Imposing term limits would likely require a constitutional amendment, though some scholars have proposed ways to accomplish it by statute.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the commission will represent the full political spectrum. It will include liberal and conservative legal scholars, former federal judges and lawyers who have appeared before the court. It will hold public meetings and have 180 days to report its findings.

Biden promised in October, late in the presidential election campaign, to establish the commission – a step that enabled him to avoid taking a firm position on the proposal floated by some liberals to expand the court, though he has opposed the idea in the past.

Republicans fiercely oppose the idea of what is sometimes called “court packing.” Some Democrats and liberal activists have said all options including expansion must be considered to counter an entrenched conservative majority that could threaten abortion rights, civil rights, gun control and access to healthcare in the coming years.

Republican former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three justices during his four years in office, giving the court a 6-3 conservative majority.

Democrats accused Republicans of “stealing” a Supreme Court seat in 2016 when the Senate, then controlled by Republicans, refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill a vacancy left by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

Republicans at the time said it would be inappropriate to confirm a justice during a presidential election year. Their gambit paved the way for Trump in 2017 to replace Scalia with another conservative, Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Democrats accused Republicans of hypocrisy last year when the Senate quickly confirmed Trump’s appointment of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett a week before the presidential election after the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg the prior month.

The court’s oldest member is liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, 82. If Breyer retires this year, as liberal activists have urged him to do, Biden would make his first appointment to the high court. Biden has promised to name a Black woman, which would be a historic first. But replacing a liberal with a liberal would not change the court’s ideological balance.

Psaki said Biden “believes that’s a decision for Justice Breyer to make when he decides it is no longer time to serve on the Supreme Court.”

In a speech at Harvard Law School on Tuesday, Breyer indicated that changes to the court could undermine its authority. The court, Breyer said, depends on “trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics.”

Breyer added: “Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that perception, further eroding that trust.”

Some liberal activists on Friday demanded immediate action to expand the court.

“Adding seats is the only way to restore balance to the court, and Congress should get started right away,” said Aaron Belkin, who heads the liberal group Take Back the Court.

The last attempt to expand the court was a failed effort in the 1930s by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt after a series of rulings frustrated some of his policies.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Steve Holland in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Trevor Hunnicutt and Heather Timmons; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Rosalba O’Brien)

Putin approves changes allowing him to stay in power until 2036

By Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday opened the door to constitutional changes that would allow him to remain in power until 2036, but said he favored term limits once the country became politically “mature”.

Putin, who in January unveiled a major shake-up of Russian politics and a constitutional overhaul, is required by the constitution to step down in 2024 when his second sequential and fourth presidential term ends.

But addressing the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, he gave his qualified blessing to a proposed change to the constitution that would formally reset his presidential term tally to zero.

“The proposal to remove restrictions for any person, including the incumbent president … In principle, this option would be possible, but on one condition – if the constitutional court gives an official ruling that such an amendment would not contradict the principles and main provisions of the constitution,” Putin said.

He said U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt serving four terms because of the upheaval his country was going through at the time was an example of why presidential term limits were sometimes superfluous.

“In conditions when a country is experiencing such shocks and difficulties, of course … stability is perhaps more important and must be a priority,” he said, adding that Russia was still recovering from the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

If, as Putin’s critics suspect, the constitutional court gives its blessing to the amendment and it is backed in a nationwide vote in April, Putin could serve another two back-to-back six year terms.

Were he to do that, and his health and electoral fortunes allowed, he could stay in office until 2036 at which point he would be 83.

Kremlin critic and opposition politician Alexei Navalny said he believed Putin was now set to become president for life, while Navalny’s ally, Ivan Zhdanov, decried the move as tantamount to a constitutional coup.

‘ROOM TO MANEUVER’

Putin, 67, now had more room to maneuver politically, said Tatiana Stanovaya, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

His stance handed him the option to run again in 2024 should he choose to do so and removed political challenges raised by what had been seen as his last term in the Kremlin, she added.

“The successor issue disappears. The issue of Putin as a lame duck disappears,” said Stanovaya.

Opposition activists said they planned to protest against what some called a rewriting of the constitution in the interests of the ruling elite. One group said it had applied for permission to stage a demonstration on March 21.

A former KGB officer, Putin, who is serving his fourth presidential term and has also served as prime minister, has dominated the Russian political landscape for two decades.

Putin has not spelled out what his plans for the future are, but he has said he does not favor the Soviet-era practice of having leaders for life who die in office.

Putin appeared before parliament on Tuesday after Valentina Tereshkova, a lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party and the first woman in space, told parliament she was proposing to amend the constitution in a way that would reset his presidential term count to zero.

Explaining the surprise move, Tereshkova said voters had told lawmakers in recent meetings that they wanted Putin to “stay nearby”, whatever constitutional changes occurred.

“What if suddenly something goes wrong?” asked Tereshkova. “He (Putin) will be able to support, help and have our backs.”

Her proposal came as parliament was examining and preparing to vote on Putin’s constitutional shake-up in the second of three readings, something it later did, approving it and Tereshkova’s amendment.

(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth, Maria Kiselyova, Polina Devitt, Darya Korsunskaya, Anton Zverev and Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Putin says will step down as president after term expires in 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a screen at the stand of Russian state oil major Rosneft during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin said on Friday he would respect the Russian constitution which bans anyone from serving two consecutive presidential terms, meaning he will step down from his post in 2024 when his current term expires.

His remarks, made to reporters at an economic forum in St Petersburg and broadcast on state TV, are not a surprise and do not necessarily mean he will relinquish power in six years.

Putin has stepped down as president once before, in 2008, after serving two back-to-back terms only to return in 2012 after doing a stint as prime minister, a maneuver he would be legally entitled to carry out again.

“I have always strictly abided by and abide by the constitution of the Russian Federation,” Putin said, when asked if and when he would be leaving office.

“In the constitution it’s clearly written that nobody can serve more than two terms in a row … I intend to abide by this rule.”

Putin easily won re-election in March, extending his tenure by six years to 24 – which would make him Moscow’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova/Andrew Osborn; Editing by John Stonestreet)