Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s refusal to cooperate with the senior judicial echelon is harming the Israeli public and obstructing the appointment of key judicial officials, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara argued on Monday.
The position was submitted ahead of a Tuesday hearing before the High Court of Justice, under Justices Ofer Grosskopf, Yechiel Kasher, and Alex Stein. It was penned by Omri Epstein, who oversees High Court petition matters at the State Attorney’s Office, and Moria Freeman, a senior deputy in the State Attorney’s Office’s High Court Department.
The filing underscores that cooperation between the justice minister and the Supreme Court president is “a fundamental and critical foundation necessary to ensure” that the justice system functions properly, “as one of the three pillars of Israeli democracy.”
“In effect, from a system-of-government perspective, this constitutes a severe, unjustified, and unexplained infringement by the executive branch on the judiciary, while disrupting the system of checks and balances in Israeli democracy,” the state argued.
Disrupting the system of checks and balances
The petition was filed in July by Zulat, a progressive rights advocacy organization, against the government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Levin, and Supreme Court President Isaac Amit.
The communication breakdown dates back to June 2024, the filing says, when Levin ceased holding work meetings with then-interim Supreme Court president Uzi Fogelman. It continued after Amit entered the role in January 2025.
The court had ordered Levin to explain why he would not advance several appointments requiring cooperation with the Supreme Court president, including court presidents and vice presidents, retired judges serving by temporary appointment, registrars, and judges to parole boards.
Currently, at least 45 of those posts remain vacant, including the presidencies of the Central and Beersheba district courts.
There are also currently 14 retired judges serving by temporary appointment, down 58% from 33 in 2024, and there is still no additional registrar appointed to the Supreme Court, a position that has been vacant for a year and a half.
The state argued that its earlier responses in the case had focused on factual updates, because Levin had not provided his position or reasoning regarding the missing appointments. His later response, the state said, focused largely on his claim that Amit is not the lawful president of the Supreme Court, rather than on the appointments at the center of the petition.
“The minister has specified – numerous times – his policy to avoid any act that would lead to his recognition, directly or by proxy, of the Supreme Court president,” the filing states.
But the state argued that Levin’s own conduct contradicts that position, noting that he has completed appointments that required approval or consultation with the Supreme Court president. In those cases, the filing said, Levin simply did not publish the appointments in the official gazette under his own signature, as had previously been customary, in an apparent effort to avoid any formal appearance of recognition.
“In practice, the minister is barred from claiming that he does not recognize the president, beyond the fact that his conduct, as stated, constitutes a serious infringement on the judiciary and the public,” the state argued.
The filing framed the dispute not only as an administrative breakdown, but as a constitutional one. Citing a 1985 High Court ruling, the state said cooperation between the justice minister and the Supreme Court president reflects a separation-of-powers model built not on “walls of separation between the branches,” but on “bridges” that serve as “balancers and watchdogs.”
The damage resulting from Levin’s conduct is not only to Amit, but to the wider public, the filing argued, particularly those who rely on the courts for timely legal service.
The state said Levin’s ongoing refusal to cooperate lacks any legal basis, is fundamentally flawed, and cannot stand.