High Court finally publicizes its conflict of interest list
Justices were under attack for alleged double-standard.
By YONAH JEREMY BOBA screen capture of the live stream feed from a hearing at the High Court of Justice(photo credit: screenshot)
The High Court of Justice on Sunday night finally publicized a list of conflicts of interests for each of the court’s justices.Publication of the list comes after multiple rounds of exposes of justices allegedly failing to properly observe conflict rules which require recusing themselves from a case if someone close to them is involved.Examples of people on the lists included members of Chief Justice Esther Hayut’s family, Deputy Chief Justice Hanan Melcer’s family, various municipalities and insurance companies.Most justices listed three or more individual lawyers and three or more companies who they should not sit in judgment before.Only Justice Noam Sohlberg did not list anyone – for reasons which were unclear.None of the conflicts for which the justices had been attacked were of the black and white variety, meaning involving close family members, which the law explicitly prohibits and where a violation could lead to being forced off the court.Rather, they often involved former law clerks of the justices or institutions which family members had some connection to, but were not necessarily being directly impacted by in the case.
