Justice Minister Yariv Levin may attempt to pass a controversial law that will give the coalition control over appointments of judges and of the Supreme Court chief justice before the January 16 deadline by which a permanent chief justice must be appointed, a spokesperson for Levin said on Sunday.The law in question, which passed all legislative stages, save for the second and third reading in the plenum, already in March 2023, would grant the coalition control of the Judicial Selection Committee.
This would give the coalition control over the appointment of judges to all courts in Israel, as well as control over the appointment of the chief justice.
The High Court ruled on December 12 that Levin must hold a vote to appoint a permanent chief justice by January 16, after the justice minister refrained from doing so since the previous chief justice, Esther Hayut, retired in October 2023.Levin supports conservative justice Yosef Elron for the position, but the majority of the committee will likely elect interim Chief Justice Isaac Amit, who is the longest-sitting judge on the high court bench.
Controversial law
The law is controversial and considered a major part of the government’s judicial reforms. Even if the bill returns to the Knesset plenum this week or next week, it remains unclear whether it will receive support from the entire coalition.The Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which is chaired by Levin, decided to delay by two weeks a different bill by Likud MK Tally Gotliv, which would alter the election process of the chief justice. Gotliv proposed to have the chief justice elected by the Knesset in a discreet vote. In addition, the chief justice can be a high court justice with three years on the bench, but in certain cases, it can also be a regional court chief or a law academic.Deputy Attorney-General Avital Sompolinsky wrote in a letter to Levin regarding Gotliv’s proposal on Sunday that it “severely violated core values of democratic governing and does not meet necessary legal criteria” and, therefore, could not be advanced.Sompolinsky listed two reasons: it constituted an attempt to “change the rules of the game” of electing a chief justice “while the game is being played”; it would lead to the “politicization of the procedure of appointing the high court chief justice.”Sompolinsky added that Gotliv’s proposal was a continuation of the judicial reforms. The deputy A-G attached to her letter an over 100-page legal opinion from February 2023 addressing all parts of the reform that Levin had announced, including the attempt to alter the makeup of the judicial selection committee.