Israel's High Court ruled Sunday that Justice Minister Yariv Levin must convene the Judicial Selection Committee and choose a new president of Israel’s top court; since the retirement of Esther Hayut nearly a year ago, the court has been functioning without an elected president.
The presidency of the High Court has since the founding of the state traditionally operated under a seniority system, with the longest-serving justice becoming the head of the court.
The next in line to become chief justice following the retirement of former chief justice Esther Hayut is Yizhak Amit, but Levin does not want Amit to be elected since he is considered to have a liberal outlook. Meanwhile, two more judges on the high court are set to retire over the next several weeks.
Amit likely will become the interim president of the court when the next most senior judge retires in early October, before the vote of the Judicial Selection Committee. But he will operate with limited power. The current situation, in which there has been no president for almost a year, is unprecedented.
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Justice Minister Yariv Levin has refused to convene the Judicial Selection Committee and choose a new president of Israel’s top court
(Photo: Shilo Shalom)
The justices presiding over the case, Yael Wilner, Ofer Grosskopf and Alex Stein, none of whom will be retiring, did not order Levin to hold votes on the appointment of new justices to the Supreme Court, just tits president.
The Supreme Court panel unanimously ruled that the Justice Minister must fulfill his duty to publish the list of candidates for the position of president of the Supreme Court within 14 days. After that, the public will have a period of 45 days to submit objections to the candidates and then the committee will have to be convened. As for the selection of judges for the Supreme Court by the committee, which requires the broad agreement of seven committee members out of nine, it was determined that there is no reason to interfere with it.
The court issued a ruling on the issue following a petition filed by the Movement for Quality Government which called on Levin to convene the committee. "If Levin is unable to comply with the ruling of the High Court of Justice he should resign immediately," the group said after the ruling was issued on Sunday.
Levin responded to the decision by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the next Supreme Court president. He claimed that the High Court's order "has no equal in any Western democracy."
“A president of the Supreme Court who is appointed in a coercive and invalid manner brings the declining trust in the court to an even deeper low,” Levin said, adding: "The order is a slap in the face of about 2.5 million voters of the coalition, and of many more who demand the diversity of the judicial system. I will not be able to work with a president who was illegally appointed by his friends, and who is illegitimate in the eyes of a vast [section of the] public. The irresponsible order tramples on democracy and the road to agreements that was paved in recent months, and sets Israel back.”
Levin called the courts' order "a direct continuation of the improper way of appointments in the legal system, as we saw in the matter of the appointment of the Attorney General." He emphasized that "exactly because of this, I acted upon the formation of the current government to change the situation. With the outbreak of the war, I decided to stop the legislation and at this time deal with issues on which there is a broad consensus. However, instead of embracing this decision, it was used by the judges in a cynical way, to invalidate a basic law, and to intervene in security issues with extreme concern for the conditions of the terrorists," this referring to a High Court order to allow the Red Cross to visit the Nukhba terrorists held in Israeli prisons.
Levin had promised to change the way justices are appointed as part of his judicial reform plan, which led Israelis to take to the street in protest last year.