JERUSALEM (AP) — Jerusalem residents woke to discover a surprising spectacle outside the country’s Supreme Court — a golden statue of the court’s president put up in protest by members of a religious nationalist group.

Police quickly removed the statue of Miram Naor, raised outside the court overnight, but after questioning some suspects, said no criminal activity had occurred.

Derech Chaim, which wants to impose Jewish religious law in Israel, said it had put up the statue to protest what one activist called the court’s “dictatorship.” Many Israeli hardliners consider the court to be excessively liberal and interventionist.

Ariel Gruner, a Derech Chaim activist, said the statue was erected in response to a court ruling this week over the country’s treatment of African migrants. The ruling said that while Israel can transfer migrants to a third country, it cannot incarcerate them for more than 60 days to pressure them to leave.

The ruling is among a series of decisions that “eliminates the possibility of elected officials, of the government, to make decisions and rule,” Gruner said.

He acknowledged that the statue had been inspired by a golden statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu erected by a left-wing artist in a main Tel Aviv square last year.

Members of Netanyahu’s religious and nationalist government regularly criticize the Supreme Court. After this week’s decision on the migrants, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said the judicial system ignores Zionism. Yariv Levin of the ruling Likud Party called the judges’ considerations “post-Zionist,” and other ministers vowed to draft legislation to bypass the ruling.

Earlier this year Shaked pushed for the appointment of more conservative judges to the nine-member bench.