New chief quizzed about conflict of interest allegations

Isaac Amit finally elected Supreme Court president; Levin pledges to boycott him

Vote forced by top court ends 16 months in which it lacked a permanent head; justice minister calls process ‘illegitimate to its core,’ petitioners declare ‘victory for democracy’

Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

Justice Minister Yariv Levin (left) attends a plenum session in the Knesset on November 13, 2024. (Chaim Goldbergl/Flash90); Acting Supreme Court President Justice Isaac Amit at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, November 14, 2024 (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Justice Minister Yariv Levin (left) attends a plenum session in the Knesset on November 13, 2024. (Chaim Goldbergl/Flash90); Acting Supreme Court President Justice Isaac Amit at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, November 14, 2024 (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

After an unprecedented 16 months without a permanent Supreme Court president and in the face of unrelenting opposition from Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Justice Isaac Amit was elected head of Israel’s top court on Sunday night in a court-forced vote by the Judicial Selection Committee.

Amit was appointed after a five-hour committee hearing during which recent allegations of misconduct against the justice, who has served for the last four months as acting president of the Supreme Court, were heard and debated.

Levin, together with the other coalition representatives in the committee, Settlements Minister Orit Strock and Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kroizer, boycotted the hearing in protest of the decision by the Supreme Court — sitting as the High Court of Justice — to order him to hold a vote in the committee, which he has refused to do for almost a year and a half.

Immediately following the vote, Levin labeled the appointment process as “illegitimate to its core” and declared he did not recognize Amit as chief justice, adding that he would not work with him on essential business of the judiciary which requires cooperation between the justice minister and the Supreme Court president.

The entire, fraught process of appointing a new president has witnessed a series of unprecedented events bordering on constitutional crises, from a justice minister refusing to fill the position of Supreme Court president for such an extended period of time to the High Court intervening and ordering the appointment be made.

Legal experts have said that even Sunday’s events — in which Levin did not actually convene the Judicial Selection Committee himself but rather appeared to have allowed the committee’s secretary to convene it — were without any precedent in Israeli history.

Supreme Court Justice Isaac Amit arrives at the offices of the Israel Courts Administration in Jerusalem for a meeting of the Judicial Selection Committee which later appointed him Supreme Court president, January 26, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Levin’s declaration that he does not recognize Amit as president is similarly unprecedented.
The impact of the hardline minister’s stance is that key appointments within the judiciary, such as presidents of district courts and crucial administrative positions that need the cooperation of the justice minister and the Supreme Court president, will be impossible to make as long as Levin continues to boycott Amit.

Levin’s defiant and obstinate refusal to make the appointment has been accompanied by his efforts to change the process for all judicial appointments in Israel through his judicial overhaul agenda, in which he is seeking to assert greater government control over the selection of judges in Israel.

A 16-month battle

Over the last 16 months, since former Supreme Court president Esther Hayut retired in October 2023, Levin refused to hold a vote for a new chief justice since he wished to install a conservative to the position rather than the liberal Amit, but lacked the votes on the Judicial Selection Committee to do so.

After nearly a year of such delays, the Supreme Court acting in its capacity as the High Court of Justice ruled in September that although as chairman of the committee the justice minister has some discretion over when to call a vote, he cannot indefinitely refuse to make the appointment, which would have given the minister a veto over the position that the law never intended to grant him.

The High Court ruled at the time that the appointment must be made “in short order,” and then in December ordered Levin to do so by January 16. Earlier this month, the court gave him an extension until January 26 after Levin sought more time to clarify new allegations of misconduct against Amit, and then again on Friday it instructed him to hold the vote on January 26, rejecting a new request for a further delay.

Levin has repeatedly claimed that the High Court’s orders against him, issued by two conservative justices and one liberal, were “unlawful” and illegitimately “expropriated” his authorities over the Judicial Selection Committee as its chairman.

Allegations against Amit

Just three days before the January 16 deadline, allegations appeared in several media outlets that Amit had presided over several cases in which he had conflicts of interest. This prompted Levin to seek a further delay in making the appointment, and the court granted him an extra 10 days to do so.

When Levin requested a second delay on Friday due to fresh reports against Amit, the High Court told him the relevant body to review the claims was the Judicial Selection Committee and ordered him to bring his complaints to that body.

Levin did not, however, convene Sunday’s hearing despite the court order, in what appears to be a further snub of the High Court.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin speaks at a Knesset session, December 4, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Instead, he appeared to have permitted the director of the Israel Courts Administration, Judge Tzahi Ouziel, who serves as the secretary of the committee, to convene the panel, although neither he nor a spokesperson for the Judicial Authority explained the legal mechanism for this procedure.

Present in Sunday’s meeting of the Judicial Selection Committee was Amit himself, since he has been serving on the committee for several months already, together with fellow Supreme Court justices Noam Sohlberg and Daphne Barak-Erez, Yesh Atid MK Karine Elharrar representing the opposition, and two lawyers representing the Israel Bar Association.

Amit did not participate in, and was not present for, the vote on his own election since he has a clear conflict of interest. Sohlberg was elected deputy president of the court, and he too did not participate in the vote for the same reason.

According to Hebrew media reports, Amit was quizzed at length during the meeting about each of the allegations against him.

Amit has said publicly that the allegations ignore key facts which excluded the possibility that he had a conflict of interest in them, and claimed that the series of media reports over his affairs are part of an “organized smear campaign” against him.

“I hereby announce unambiguously that I do not recognize Justice Isaac Amit as head of the Supreme Court, and the processes in which he was ‘elected’ are illegitimate to their core and unlawful,” declared Levin following the vote in a letter to Ouziel, the Courts Administration chief.

Acting Supreme Court President Justice Isaac Amit at a hearing for a petition filed by families of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, October 28, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

It is “a sad day for democracy, and a say day for our legal system,” said Levin, asserting that Amit would not enjoy the public’s trust, and vowing to “not stop working until we fix this disgraceful situation at its foundation.”

The justice minister also contended that the appointment, without a “thorough examination of all the allegations” against Amit, was a “moral disgrace and an action in total contravention of proper administration, as well as norms established by the High Court itself in relation to candidates for public office.”

Presidential backing

Several other cabinet ministers also denounced Amit’s appointment, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid welcomed Amit’s election, however, calling it “a victory for democracy and proper administration,” adding that the “unnecessary delay” to the appointment “has caused enormous damage to the rule of law in Israel.”

President Isaac Herzog welcomed the appointment, saying Amit had “contributed greatly over decades to Israel’s legal system” and adding that he was “certain and sure that his many talents and rich experience” would help him “lead the judiciary responsibly, with discretion and dedication for the benefit of the State of Israel.”

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, whose petition brought about the High Court’s intervention, called Amit’s appointment “a victory for democracy and the rule of law over the illegitimate efforts to harm the independence of the judicial authority.”

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