Levin plans to end seniority system for appointing Supreme Court president – report
Move would allow for outside candidates, but is unlikely to receive support of justices; under current system, Esther Hayut will be succeeded by Isaac Amit in October
Justice Minister Yariv Levin reportedly plans to scrap the seniority-based system for the appointment of the president of the Supreme Court, opening up the possibility that the office could be held by someone not already sitting on the bench.
However, according to a Tuesday Channel 13 news report, judicial officials believe Levin understands that Supreme Court justices will not allow such a change to take place.
Current Supreme Court President Esther Hayut is set to step down in October upon reaching age 70, to be replaced with Justice Isaac Amit.
Under the current law, the president of the Supreme Court is picked from among the panel of justices already in the court, with the decision traditionally based on seniority.
However, the report said Levin — who has already announced controversial widespread reforms to the judicial system — has prepared a legal memorandum according to which “a president or vice president of the Supreme Court will be appointed in the same way that justices of the Supreme Court are appointed, whether they first served as justices of the Supreme Court or not.”
It remained unclear if his plan would require the president to even be a judge, potentially opening up the possibility of a lawyer or academic heading up the nation’s top court.
Hayut warned last month against interfering with the independence of the judiciary, saying that without freedom, judges cannot fulfill their mission.
Levin met with Hayut on Sunday for the first time since he announced his sweeping reform package. According to the Ynet news site, the two mainly discussed managerial issues such as personnel and budget.
Levin’s major overhaul of Israel’s legal system will also reportedly see the government take complete control over the selection of new judges and end the selection panel’s independence.
Levin, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has presented a four-point “first stage” overhaul that would drastically limit the authority of the High Court of Justice to block legislation and government decisions deemed discriminatory and/or undemocratic, abolish “reasonableness” as a test by which justices can weigh legality, give the government control over judicial selection, and eliminate ministry legal advisers appointed by the attorney general.
The justice minister claims that judicial activism has ruined public trust in the legal system and made it impossible for governments to rule effectively.
Critics disagree, claiming that Levin’s plans would destroy the country’s constitutional structure and threaten its democratic character and its basic judicial principles. They are argue the reforms to the legal system are doubly problematic at this time, with Netanyahu standing trial for alleged corruption.
Former chief justice Aharon Barak, Israel’s most renowned legal figure, warned Saturday that Levin’s reforms essentially give all power to the prime minister, leave citizens with no defense against the removal of their rights, and would mark the beginning of the end of the modern State of Israel.
He called Levin’s proposals “a string of poison pills” that, if put around Israel’s neck, would mark “the beginning of the end of the Third House” — the third period of Jewish national sovereignty, after the ancient First and Second Temple eras.
Former deputy Supreme Court president Elyakim Rubinstein warned in an interview published Wednesday that the planned reforms would leave Israel with just one branch of government, the executive, and hollow out Israeli democracy.
Netanyahu pushed back against the criticism on Sunday, saying that the overhaul would strengthen democracy rather than hasten its end, and that his government was carrying out the will of the people.
