High Court rules government’s chosen method for appointing Civil Service head invalid

In the latest blow by the High Court of Justice against the current government, the court rules that the cabinet resolution from 2024 to appoint a new head of the Civil Service without a competitive process is invalid.

The court, in a majority two-to-one decision, determines that the process for appointing a Civil Service commissioner must be carried out by creating a permanent appointments process, which involves a competitive hiring system.

Writing for the majority, Supreme Court President Isaac Amit asserts that the process chosen by the government — whereby the prime minister selects a candidate who is then vetted by an appointments committee — is lacking sufficient guardrails to guarantee the independence, impartiality, and apolitical nature of the Civil Service commissioner role.

And neither, maintains Amit, does it guarantee that the best candidate will be appointed to the job.

In a dissenting opinion, Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg writes that there is no justification for court intervention over the issue of a competitive appointments process, since the law for the Civil Service states explicitly that there is no obligation to issue a public tender for the position

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, a radical voice in the Likud party, calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ignore the court ruling, and slams Amit and Judge Daphne Barak Erez, who ruled with Amit against the cabinet resolution, “anti-democratic,” accusing them of “showing contempt for the law.”

Stormed Karhi on X “We have another opportunity to say to the High Court ‘No!’ To protect democracy and the balance between the branches of government we have to tell the High Court ‘No!'”

One of the petitioners, The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, says, however, that the ruling “constitutes another pillar in protecting the independence and professionalism of the public service.”