Chief justice accuses Levin of harming separation of powers in budget intervention
Justice minister tells treasury officials to cut some 27 judicial posts in favor of positions in the probation service; acting Supreme Court president blasts ‘unprecedented’ move
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Justice Minister Yariv Levin is seeking to cut over two dozen positions on court benches around the country through intervention in the judiciary’s budget, in a move that Acting Supreme Court President Isaac Amit lambasted as an assault on the separation of powers.
Levin on Thursday intervened in budget negotiations between the Finance Ministry and the Judicial Authority and asked officials there to cut any judicial positions that are currently unfilled in favor of priorities that the justice minister laid out in a letter to the treasury.
In Levin’s last-minute missive to the head of the treasury’s budget department, he claimed that Israel’s probation service was understaffed and that funding positions in that agency should be prioritized above funding the unfilled spots in the judiciary.
The positions are unfilled largely because Levin refused to convene the Judicial Selection Committee for some 11 months at the beginning of his tenure, Amit pointed out in a letter to the minister protesting his maneuver.
Amit upbraided Levin for what he said was the latter’s “unprecedented” interference in the judiciary’s budget, which he claimed amounted to an assault on the separation of powers between the branches of government. Amit requested that the original budget agreed upon between the treasury and the Judicial Authority remain unchanged.
Opposition MKs also denounced Levin over the move, accusing him of “trampling” the judiciary and likewise of harming the separation of powers.
It was not immediately clear whether the budget will be altered as Levin has demanded.
In his letter to the treasury on Thursday, Levin said the probation service currently lacks 70 positions, which he asserted is harming its ability to provide the services it is responsible for, and causing delays to trials that need the input of the service.
“I was astonished to learn that the [Finance Ministry’s] Budgets Department opposes funding these necessary positions for the probation service, and at the same time proposes to fund in their place some 20 more positions for judges, as well as their aides,” Levin complained.
The Judicial Authority says there are currently 27 positions open on courts around the country.
The justice minister said that the budget proposal should therefore be amended so that the new positions within the Judicial Authority that the Treasury will fund “will be in accordance with the priorities that I have detailed in this letter.”
Writing to Levin in the wake of his intervention, Amit noted that the budget for the Judicial Authority had been agreed upon between professional officials in both those offices, and that it included severe cuts involving canceling dozens of administrative positions and reductions to the operational budget.
Protesting Levin’s request to cut the vacant positions on the courts, Amit alleged that many of those spots were vacant because he had refused to convene the Judicial Selection Committee.
“This is an unprecedented step. A justice minister has never intervened in the budget of the Judicial Authority,” Amit fumed in his letter to Levin.
He added that the minister’s intervention in the budget and how it was allocated “harms the core of the separation of powers and the independence of the justice system, and represents the trampling of the judiciary by the executive.”
He added that reducing the number of judicial positions would be damaging to those in legal proceedings before the courts, and make it harder for the judiciary to serve the public.
Labor MK Gilad Kariv accused Levin of seeking to harm the justice system and take revenge against it for the numerous defeats he has faced in trying to implement his divisive judicial overhaul program.
“This is an unprecedented injury to the independence of the judiciary and its ability to function, and further testimony to the reckless behavior of this government, which doesn’t let the awful and severe situation [the country is in] divert it from its path of destruction and division,” said Kariv.
Levin launched a fierce campaign against the judiciary immediately upon entering office in late 2022, and sought to increase governmental control over it and curtail its powers through his judicial overhaul agenda, the most extreme aspects of which have been blocked.
As part of his campaign, Levin refused to convene the Judicial Selection Committee for almost a year due to his desire to give the coalition a majority on the panel through legislation before making judicial appointments. He was eventually forced to convene it due to High Court rulings.
The fight took place despite there being dozens of open positions on courts around the country, which created a severe backlog of cases and overburdened sitting judges.
The Times of Israel Community.