Shaked: Supreme Court already politicized
In response to Supreme Court President Esther Hayut's warning against political agenda trumping professional considerations, Shaked insists political contacts needn’t compromise justices’ abilities.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked insisted Monday that the judicial system had already been politicized by former Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak, in response to a letter recently written by the court's president, Esther Hayut, forbidding judges from establishing independent contacts with politicians and representatives of the Israel Bar Association on the Judicial Appointments Committee.
"There are two worrying trends: the judicialization of politics and the politicization of the judiciary", said Shaked at the Eilat Journalists Conference after Hayut argued that the court was becoming too politicized. "It was Aharon Barak who politicized the judicial system when the court began adjudicating political and economic matters."
Hayut's letter was referring to the revelations, made public last week by the TV program "Uvda", that judges often lobby for their promotion. "The revelations are not flattering, to say the least", she wrote. This phenomenon and "collusion between the attorneys and the politicians in the committee, in a de-facto union, poses an inherent danger that selection (of judges) will serve to advance a political agenda at the expense of professional considerations," she said.
"Politicization of the judicial system may shake the foundations of an independent judiciary, I intend to do everything in my power to defend the independence of the judicial system and prevent its politicization."
Shaked also spoke at the conference about the Judicial Appointments Committee saying: "the committee is not merely a decorative forum. I was not elected to leave the situation as is but rather to transform it.
"It can't be said that candidates promoted by politicians are any less deserving. I want judges with a conservative world view, but primarily I want proficient judges. All citizens of Israel deserve proper representation that should not come at the expense of professionalism," she added.
"Judges naturally formulate their worldview within the judicial system. We cannot bury our heads in the sand, definitely not after the Constitutional Revolution carried out by Barak."
