Major showdown builds on justice minister issue - analysis
The situation is so serious that the High Court may actually step in and order the government to appoint a justice minister or even delegate the authority directly to Gantz.
By YONAH JEREMY BOBUpdated: APRIL 26, 2021 20:52Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit (R)(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
A climactic showdown is brewing between the High Court of Justice, Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz on one hand, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the other hand.The situation is so serious that the High Court may actually step in and order the government to appoint a justice minister or even delegate the authority directly to Gantz.For nearly a month, Mandelblit and Gantz have warned that Netanyahu’s failure to approve a justice minister, once Gantz’s temporary appointment expired, would cause massive problems.Extraditions cannot be approved to or from Israel, damaging fighting crime and the Jewish state’s international relations.When Justice Hanan Melcer retired a few weeks ago, there was no justice minister to move toward a replacement, and the same will soon be true when Justice Menachem Mazuz retires.Likewise, various legislative issues relating to the coronavirus have either been put on hold or were delayed because the coronavirus cabinet could not meet without a justice minister.All of these issues were serious.But what seems to have finally caused the justices to boil over is ironically an issue related to prisoners – people who often go unseen.A justice minister has the power to exempt prisoners from coming to court hearings in favor of Zoom due to the coronavirus.However, absent a justice minister, many unvaccinated prisoners will imminently start to come to court for every hearing without measures in place to prevent significant infection events between them and the general public.
The health of the judges and their judicial staff would also endure heightened exposure.High Court President Esther Hayut, Justice Neal Hendel and Justice Uzi Vogelman were so upset by the idea that the government was abandoning the health of the general public, of the prisoners and of the courts themselves, that they initially demanded a resolution by last Thursday afternoon.Eventually, the justices granted the government an extension until Sunday and another extension until Tuesday.But for each extension, Mandelblit and the High Court started to shift from discussing ordering the appointment of a justice minister, over Netanyahu’s objections, as a theoretical idea to a concrete likelihood.On the one hand, the High Court has issued some parallel rulings before.The court did demand that the Netanyahu government appoint a permanent health minister in 2015.This was back when UTJ wanted to hold on to the ministry, but with only the deputy minister title so as not to validate a secular government.The High Court also ordered Yuli Edelstein to step down as Knesset speaker in March 2020 after a coalition of anti-Netanyahu parties wanted to vote him out, and he tried to forestall the vote.But that does not make a High Court ruling here remotely normal.Both of the two cases were met with a tidal wave of scorn by the pro-Netanyahu bloc and threats to defang the judiciary.Even without those threats, there is something especially problematic about the High Court essentially choosing the top legal official for the executive branch – who incidentally chairs the committee that selects judges.In the current chaos characterizing Israel’s political arena, this may be the least bad of a variety of bad choices.Though Netanyahu or the anti-Netanyahu bloc may suddenly form a government in the coming days, what if it takes weeks or if the country goes to a fifth round of elections, and the issue is left open for months?Regardless of how the High Court rules, the lesson appears to be that a stable government is needed, and soon, and not merely to improve the country in general, but to avoid specific concrete impending disasters.
