Knesset holds final votes on bill to take political control of appointing judges
Voting expected to continue until early Thursday morning due to objections to legislation, at heart of coalition’s judicial overhaul, that increasingly politicizes process of choosing justices
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The coalition brought highly controversial legislation for final votes at the Knesset on Wednesday that will greatly increase political control over the judicial appointments process in Israel, and dramatically reduce the influence of the judiciary over appointments to the Supreme Court.
The voting comes on the heels of the coalition’s approval of the 2025 budget, in a major boost to the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, as general elections would have been called had the budget not passed before March 31.
Approving the judicial appointments bill in back-to-back second and third readings will likely take all night and into the early hours of Thursday morning due to the unprecedented 71,023 objections the opposition filed against the legislation.
The legislation will increase the number of political representatives on the nine-member Judicial Selection Committee.
It will also give political representatives from the coalition, opposition and judiciary on the nine-member Judicial Selection Committee veto power over lower court appointments, as opposed to the current system where no side has a veto.
And the bill will remove any influence of the three judges on the committee over appointments to the Supreme Court while granting the coalition and opposition vetoes.
The attorney general, three former Supreme Court presidents and opposition parties have argued that the changes will politicize the judicial appointments process and the judiciary itself.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who has advanced the bill, argues it is necessary to redress what he says is a system tilted against the right-wing in the judicial appointments process.
The law, if passed as expected, will only take effect at the beginning of the next Knesset term, meaning after the next general election, and it will almost certainly be challenged in the High Court of Justice.
The bill was introduced to the Knesset by Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar as an ostensible compromise over previously proposed legislation that would have given the coalition almost complete control over all judicial appointments.
The new legislation was initially backed by former cabinet minister Yizhar Shai, who was a member of Gantz’s Israel Resilience party, and Brig. Gen. (Res.) Dedi Simchi.
Shai recently retracted his support, however, saying the issue was too divisive to deal with at a time of war, when the country is so politically divided and with Hamas still holding hostages.
Sources close to Levin have said that it is unlikely that any of the three empty spots on the Supreme Court will be filled until the new law takes effect.
The legislation, part of the government’s judicial overhaul plans, would remove the two representatives of the Israel Bar Association currently on the nine-member Judicial Selection Committee, which makes all judicial appointments, and replace them with one lawyer to be directly chosen by the coalition and another chosen by the opposition.
Appointments to lower courts would be made by a simple majority, but unlike the current system would need at least one vote each from committee representatives of the coalition, opposition and the Supreme Court, granting all sides a veto.
Until now, neither the judiciary, the coalition nor the opposition could veto a lower court appointment.
Appointments to the Supreme Court would need at least one vote from the coalition and opposition, but not require any votes from the three Supreme Court justices on the Judicial Selection Committee, giving the political representatives on the panel a veto while virtually stripping the judiciary of influence over appointments to the top court.
If there are two empty slots on the Supreme Court and the coalition and opposition sides veto all of each other’s nominations for a year, the justice minister can activate a deadlock-breaking mechanism, whereby both sides nominate three candidates and the other side must pick at least one.
This deadlock mechanism can only be used once in every four-year Knesset term.
One change made to the legislation during the committee process was to establish a minimum age limit of 55 for a Supreme Court judge, to stop potential abuse of the deadlock system to appoint very young, ideologically radical judges who could remain on the court for decades.
Another change was to require that at least two-thirds of the Supreme Court justices come from the district courts to ensure a majority of judges on the top court have long-term experience as jurists.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
