Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin signaled his wish on Saturday to renew the government’s judicial reform effort in response to a High Court of Justice ruling.
The Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, on Thursday ordered Levin to call a vote in the Judicial Selection Committee for a president of the court by January 16.
Writing on Facebook on Saturday night, Levin noted that while the government froze its judicial reform plans in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist invasion, the Supreme Court “decided to exploit this and continue its takeover of powers from the Knesset and government.”
The court has “effectively stripped me of the authority granted to me by law to set the agenda of the Judicial Selection Committee,” he charged.
“They left us no choice. It cannot continue like this. We too have rights,” the minister stated in the post, in what some news outlets understood as an indication that Levin will renew attempts to advance legislation that seeks to alter the makeup of the nine-member Selection Committee.
Justice Isaac Amit became acting president in October, taking over from retiring acting president Uzi Vogelman, who himself got the top legal job after the retirement of former court chief Esther Hayut in October 2023.
Both Vogelman and Hayut stepped down at the mandatory retirement age for judges of 70.
The government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the custom whereby the most senior judge is automatically promoted to court president, and to Amit, who is widely considered left-wing.
Those in favor of changes, such as Levin, who led the legal reform effort on behalf of the government, have also argued that the current system is self-selecting, putting judges in charge of choosing their successors.
Levin has offered a compromise proposal whereby Justice Yosef Elron, considered a conservative, would be appointed as court president for one year, following which Amit would serve for three years.
The seniority principle
Earlier on Thursday, the three justices who are members of the Judicial Selection Committee walked out of the forum after Levin invited experts to the meeting to give their opinion on his proposals to broadcast the deliberations of the committee live and discuss whether or not to appoint a new Supreme Court chief through the seniority principle.
Amit and justices Daphne Barak Erez and Noam Sohlberg had written a letter to Levin on Wednesday opposing the experts being allowed to testify, noting that the panel has never done so before and “that is how it has always been, and our position is that these arrangements should not be changed.”
The three justices said in their missive to Levin that they also opposed broadcasting the committee’s deliberations since it would harm the confidentiality of the proceedings and could have a “chilling effect.”
Leaders of the parties that make up Israel’s governing coalition held a meeting on Sunday to discuss judicial reform, as well as the possible firing of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. She was appointed by the government led by then-premier Naftali Bennett and has repeatedly clashed with members of Netanyahu’s coalition.
Unnamed “senior coalition officials” told the Ynet outlet that if a majority of lawmakers in the party leaders’ forum agree to dismiss Baharav-Miara, Levin had agreed to raise the issue for discussion in the Cabinet.
Levin’s proposal to revive the judicial reform drive is unlikely to come to fruition, local media opined on Saturday. Ynet cited coalition sources as saying that the ultra-Orthodox parties (Shas and United Torah Judaism) would only back judicial reform legislation after a law is passed to exempt their male followers from army service.