Asher Grunis appointed to head Supreme Court

Justice Asher Grunis was named Israel’s next Supreme Court president Friday, capping off several months of political and judicial jockeying over the fate of the post.

Grunis was officially appointed to replace current president Dorit Beinisch by the Judicial Appointments Committee, which approved his promotion to the head of the bench.

Beinisch, who will retire in March, has headed the court since 2006.

Grunis’ way to the the top was paved by the Knesset’s passage of the so-called Grunis bill, which overturned a statute that incoming Supreme Court presidents could not be nearing the age of 70.  Grunis will only be able to serve three years before he is forced into retirement.

“He’s a great judge and he is definitely the right man to serve as president of the Supreme Court,” one judicial source told Ynet news.

Environmental Protection Minsiter Gilad Erdan called Grunis “an excellent judge,” upon his appointment, according to Haaretz.

“I’m sure president Grunis will maintain the defense of civil rights and the prevention of injury against civilians, especially minorities, while leading a Supreme Court policy of self restraint out of a conception that not everything should be brought before the court and that there are things the public decides once every four years when it elects a government,” Erdan said.

Grunis is seen as a judge who avoids judicial activism and as a champion of human rights. He took heat from liberals recently, though, when he was one of six judges to uphold the so-called Citizenship Law, which bars Palestinians married to Israelis from living here.

“Human rights do not prescribe national suicide,” he wrote in the decision.