Bar association head warns of legal action if Levin won’t appoint new Supreme Court chief

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

Amit Bechar, head of the Israel Bar Association, attends a meeting of the Constitution Law and Justice Committee at the Knesset on March 18, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Amit Bechar, head of the Israel Bar Association, attends a meeting of the Constitution Law and Justice Committee at the Knesset on March 18, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Head of the Israel Bar Association, Amit Becher, calls on Justice Minister Yariv Levin to schedule a vote for a new Supreme Court president and threatens legal action if he continues refusing to do so.

Although the Judicial Selection Committee, which chooses the Supreme Court president, has met on several occasions since November and appointed judges to magistrate and district courts, Levin has refused to schedule a vote on a new chief justice since he opposes the seniority system which has been used until now to make the key appointment.

“I call again from this platform on the justice minister to fulfill his legal and public duty, and put on the committee’s agenda the selection of a permanent Supreme Court president,” says Becher at a ceremony for investing new attorneys into the bar.

“If this issue isn’t addressed soon we will act through legal means,” he adds.

The Supreme Court has been headed by acting president Justice Uzi Vogelman since former president Esther Hayut retired in October. The court has never been without a permanent president for such an extended period of time.

Becher also alludes to tensions on the Judicial Selection Committee between the liberal majority and the government representatives. He praises the efforts of the bar association’s two representatives on the committee, who he says “have unfortunately been forced to stymie efforts to thwart the advancement of judges whose rulings have not found favor with political officials.”

Reports emerged in February that committee member, Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party, objected to the appointment of Judge Tal Tadmor Zamir to the Haifa District Court because Strock deemed her sentencing of rioters in the domestic unrest that accompanied the 2021 Gaza war to be too moderate.

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