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Knesset panel to debate judicial reform bill

Approval in the Constitution Committee could set in motion the passage of the legislation in second and third (final) readings.

A discussion on the state budget at the Knesset assembly hall in Jerusalem, March 12, 2024. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
A discussion on the state budget at the Knesset assembly hall in Jerusalem, March 12, 2024. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee will convene on Wednesday to discuss a newly proposed bill to change the makeup of Israel’s Judicial Selection Committee, ahead of possible second and third (final) readings in the legislature’s plenum.

With accordance with procedure, the Constitution Committee can renew debate on a submitted bill as long as the second reading has not commenced in the plenum.

Approval by the Constitution Committee would set in motion second and third readings of this latest version of the government’s judicial reform initiative.

On Feb. 27, 2023, the committee approved the bill for second and third readings. It was then submitted to the Knesset, but it was not brought for votes in the plenum.

The legislation is a proposed amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary, along with a supplementary bill to amend the Courts Law, which involves the Judicial Selection Committee, the nine-member panel that chooses judges in Israel.

Knesset member Gilad Kariv, who represents the opposition The Democrats party on the Constitution Committee, said he would vote against the bill.

“Initiating this proposal to take over the Judicial Selection Committee is [the coalition’s] moment of taking off its masks: No agreement, no discourse, no consensus…, as if nothing had happened in the past two years,” Ynet quoted Kariv as saying.

The opposition “will stand as a formidable wall in the committee,” he said.

Former Supreme Justice Anat Baron discussed the coalition’s pared-down judicial reform proposal on Monday, at a conference of the Israel Democracy Institute.

“The new proposal [is a] sleight of hand. A compromise between the coalition and the coalition,” she said.

Baron was referring to the proposal announced last week by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.

Seeking broad consensus for change, the initiative will presumably end the Supreme Court’s control over appointing judges by removing two positions on the Selection Committee now held by representatives of the Israel Bar Association and replacing them with two attorneys who will be appointed by Knesset members.

One of the attorneys would be picked by the ruling coalition and one by the opposition. The compromise strips the Supreme Court of its de facto veto over appointments, yet gives a degree of control to the opposition.

A majority of at least five of the nine committee members would be required to select a judge, so long as one is a coalition member and one from the opposition.

Currently, the Judicial Selection Committee is made up of three Supreme Court judges, two government ministers, two Knesset members, and two lawyers from the Israel Bar Association.

As seven of the nine members are needed to approve a candidate, and the three judges vote as a bloc, they have veto power over nominees.

Given that the Bar Association lawyers typically vote with the judges (in large part because they don’t want to anger the judges who will hear their cases, critics say), the judges end up with a majority.

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