Justice Minister Yariv Levin intends to skip a Judicial Selection Committee session on Sunday after the Supreme Court denied his request to postpone it due to alleged conflict of interest issues surrounding a candidate for the court’s presidency.
Citing unnamed Justice Ministry sources, several Israeli news outlets on Friday reported that Levin intends to sit out the meeting, where he has a vote, as an act of protest against the court’s policies and its conduct in connection with selecting its president.
This development represents a new low point in the strained relationship between the court and Levin, who has vowed to reform Israel’s judicial system and introduce checks and balances to the court’s powers.
On Thursday, Levin asked the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, to postpone the meeting and the vote on Justice Yitzhak Amit’s candidacy to be appointed the court’s president.
In recent weeks, information has come to light about Justice Amit’s alleged conflicts of interest and failure to report such conflicts, as well as other complaints against him, involving building violations at a home he owns in Mevaseret Zion, west of Jerusalem. Amit has denied any wrongdoing.
He is expected to be appointed president of the Supreme Court. Elected officials have four out of nine votes on the Judicial Selection Committee—the justice minister, another minister appointed by the Cabinet, two Knesset members, including one from the opposition, which has fought Levin’s judicial reform efforts. The remaining five votes belong to three Supreme Court justices and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara published an opinion Friday that Levin has no authority to delay the Judicial Selection Committee’s Sunday meeting after the High Court rejected Levin’s petition for a delay.
