High Court orders Levin to appoint new court president; he calls its ruling undemocratic
Liberal justice Isaac Amit now likely to become president of Israel’s top court; justice minister vows to boycott incoming president; ministers threaten to revive judicial overhaul
In a significant blow to Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s efforts to assert greater control over the judiciary, the High Court of Justice ruled on Sunday that the minister must convene the Judicial Selection Committee and elect a new president for the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.
In its unanimous decision, the court rejected Levin’s assertion that the law allows him, as chairman of the committee, unlimited discretion to convene the panel only when he sees fit. Such an assertion, the judges determined, would give him veto power over the process of appointing the president of Israel’s top court — which was never the intent of the legislature.
The court’s order stymies, at least for the time being, Levin’s effort to overturn the decades-old seniority system for appointing the president of the Supreme Court, which he had sought to change in order to install a hardline conservative.
It is now likely that Justice Isaac Amit, a liberal, will become the next president of the Supreme Court when Acting President Uzi Vogelman retires on October 6, since Amit will then be the most senior justice. The liberal bloc on the Judicial Selection Committee has a majority.
Levin denounced the decision as undemocratic and “invalid,” and said he would boycott the incoming president since the appointment would be “illegal” and “illegitimate.”
In its order, the High Court instructed Levin to publish the names of the candidates for the position of president in the official state gazette within 14 days, and convene the committee “shortly after” the mandatory 45-day waiting period after the candidates’ names are published.
This means that Amit will become acting president before the Judicial Selection Committee is able to vote on the next head of the court sometime in November, according to the court’s stated schedule.
(The Supreme Court has two roles; it serves as Israel’s highest court of appeal, but also sits as the High Court of Justice to hear petitions against legislation and administrative government decisions at different levels.)
The justices presiding over the case — Yael Wilner, Ofer Grosskopf, and Alex Stein — declined, however, to order Levin to hold votes on the appointment of new justices to the Supreme Court, as the petitioning organization, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel had also sought.
Of the three justices presiding over the case, Wilner and Stein are conservatives and Ofer Grosskopf is a liberal. Vogelman and Justice Daphne Barak-Erez were excluded from the panel since, as members of the Judicial Selection Committee, they had a conflict of interest.
The ruling prompted several members of the government and the coalition to call for the renewal of the controversial judicial overhaul that aimed to increase government power over the judiciary.
The petitioner, the Movement for Quality Government, described the ruling as “the most significant victory for Israeli democracy and the separation of powers,” and said that Levin had been violating the law “in order to turn himself into a veto-wielding player with limitless power.”
In continuation of his judicial overhaul agenda to assert greater governmental control over the judiciary, Levin has refused to appoint a new Supreme Court president ever since former president Esther Hayut retired in October last year, owing to his desire to have hardline conservative Justice Yosef Elron take the reins of Israel’s top court.
Acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman strongly opposed scrapping the seniority system, however, with opponents of Levin expressing concern that this would politicize Israel’s top court.
Levin’s central contention in his refusal to appoint a new court president was that during a time of war, such an appointment needed “broad agreement.” In fact, the minister had sought to overturn the seniority system even before the October 7 Hamas invasion and the subsequent war.
Wilner, a conservative justice, rejected Levin’s contention that he could continue to insist on “broad agreement” indefinitely.
“The meaning of the minister’s policy is the giving of total and exclusive discretion to the consideration regarding coming to broad agreement… while negating the other considerations,” wrote Wilner in the central opinion of the court, which she said was not commensurate with the purpose of the law — which was simply to ensure that the position of president would be filled.
“Severe harm and damage were being caused, as a result of the absence of this appointment, to the public interest and the functioning of the court, the judicial authority, and the law enforcement system,” she wrote.
Wilner also noted that the court had respected Levin’s wish to obtain “broad agreement” by delaying a final decision since the hearing held in the High Court on the petition on July 18.
At the end of that hearing, the court told Levin to hold negotiations to find a compromise over the issue with the other members of the Judicial Selection Committee so that it would not have to rule on the issue.
Levin’s proposal was either to scrap the seniority system and appoint Justice Yosef Elron president, which Vogelman refused, or to let Amit become president and have one of two hardline conservative academics who served as inspirations for Levin’s judicial overhaul agenda appointed to one of the empty seats on the Supreme Court.
Neither of those two figures have ever served as a judge, and Vogelman reportedly said they were not qualified for the Supreme Court.
“We have refrained from intervening in the discretion of the minister,” Wilner wrote in the ruling on Sunday, but now Levin had to fulfill “his obligation to convene the committee in order to elect a president.”
Boycotts and return to the judicial overhaul
Responding to the decision, Levin said he would boycott the next president of the Supreme Court.
Levin: Order ‘tramples on democracy’
“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,” fumed the justice minister. “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 [section of the] public.
“The irresponsible order tramples on democracy and the road to agreements that was paved in recent months, and sets Israel back,” he charged.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich promised that the government would relaunch the judicial overhaul agenda, which was put on hold after October 7, describing the High Court’s ruling as “out of touch, scandalous and aggressive.”
Added Smotrich, “We support Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who stands on behalf of all of us against the only body in the country that does not recognize the limits of power. The amendments [that the coalition sought] to the legal system are essential for a Jewish and democratic Israel and we will return to them immediately after the war.”
Smotrich’s far-right cabinet colleague National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir made similar comments, arguing that the unanimous decision constituted “a serious conflict of interest” on the justices’ part, and contended that the only conclusion that can be drawn from the ruling was that “there is an urgent need to restore the legal reform as soon as possible.”
Benny Gantz, head of the opposition National Unity party, demanded that the justice minister either comply with the ruling or resign.
“The responsibility for not dragging the State of Israel into a constitutional crisis in general, and during times of war in particular, rests with the prime minister and he must make sure that the law is respected and the High Court ruling is followed,” stated Gantz.
“If [Levin] believes this is the time for wars over the seniority system instead of against Hamas, it indicates that he has poor priorities and that he and the prime minister have learned nothing from the low place we reached on the eve of the war,” he added, calling on Levin to follow the court’s ruling or “put down the keys and resign.”
