Democrats MK Kariv says coalition’s judicial reform plan politicizes judicial appointments

Democrats MK Gilad Kariv comes out against the judicial reform package proposed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, saying it “appears to be a severe politicization of the Judicial Selection Committee without appropriate balances,” and which he adds appears not to have sufficient protections for human and civil rights.

Kariv also insists that an agreement on such a critical issue for Israeli society cannot be drawn up by two cabinet ministers alone, “and cannot be imposed on the political system, the judiciary, and the entire public, amid a severe attack on the legal system and the gatekeepers [of the rule of law].”

Head of the Israel Bar Association Amit Becher goes further, calling Levin and Sa’ar’s agreement “a trick of the justice minister and not a ‘compromise,'” but rather a “deceptive and dangerous proposal to implement the principles of the coup d’état, the main focus of which was the politicization of the election of Supreme Court justices and the increase in the government’s power over the judiciary.

Becher says the notion of replacing the representatives of the Israel Bar Association currently on the Judicial Selection Committee with attorneys chosen by the Knesset – one by the coalition and one by the opposition – would annul the “professional majority” of legal professionals on the committee and greatly politicize the panel.