Israel’s Justice Minister and High Court are in a standoff over judicial appointments after Yariv Levin said on Sunday he would boycott the next President of the Court.
The High Court unanimously ruled on Sunday that Levin must convene the Judicial Selection Committee, which he chairs, to elect a new Court President, akin to a chief justice.
Specifically, Levin was given 14 days to publish the names of candidates for Court President and two more justices and convene the committee. The committee’s meeting would be held after a mandatory 45-day waiting period following the publishing of the names.
Levin slammed the ruling, saying, “A president of the Supreme Court who is appointed in a coercive and invalid manner brings the declining trust in the court to an even deeper low.”
He added, “I will not be able to work with a president who was illegally appointed by his friends, and who is illegitimate in the eyes of a vast [portion of the] public. The irresponsible order tramples on democracy and the road to agreements that was paved in recent months, and sets Israel back.”
Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and Justice Anat Baron retired in October 2023 when they both reached the age of 70, the maximum age for Israeli judges. No successors were appointed and Justice Uzi Vogelman has been serving as Acting Court President. However, Vogelman will step down from the bench in October when he turns 70, leaving the court short three Justices.
By tradition, the senior justice on the court — Justice Yitzhak Amit, who has served on the court since 2009 — is tapped for the position of Court President. But Levin prefers to appoint Justice Yosef Elron, who is more conservative. Elron joined the court in 2017.
The nine-member Judicial Selection panel is responsible for appointing judges at all levels of Israel’s civil court system. But the committee did not meet for nearly two years amid the political stalemate. The panel met for the first time in February and has since appointed lower-level judges, but the stalemate continues over fully staffing the higher courts.
Before the Gaza war, the governing coalition pursued a deeply controversial judicial reform initiative that included changes to the system for appointing and removing judges, giving the Knesset the ability to override certain High Court rulings, changing the way legal advisors are appointed to government ministries, and restricting the ability of judges to apply the legal principle of “reasonableness.”
Supporters of the legal overhaul say they wanted to end years of judicial overreach while opponents describe the proposals as anti-democratic.
The initiative was suspended in the aftermath of October 7 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed an emergency wartime government. However, Benny Gantz and the eight MKs of his National Unity party quit the government in June and called for early elections.
