High Court urges government to rethink allowing Netanyahu to hand-pick next civil service commissioner

The High Court of Justice instructs the government to decide by October 28 if it is willing to change the resolution it passed in August allowing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to essentially hand pick the next civil service commissioner, following a hearing over petitions against that cabinet decision.

The court’s directive comes following suggestions by the independent counsel representing the government that it would consider alternatives to the process it approved in August, which was strongly criticized from several quarters on the grounds that it would politicize the Civil Service Commission.

Attorney David Peter representing the government proposed that the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee examine not only a candidate’s suitability for the position but also their qualifications. Alternatively, Peter suggested that the same appointments committee that approved the current commissioner review Netanyahu’s proposed candidate for the incoming commissioner.

In September, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara expressed her opposition to the government resolution in her response to the High Court petitions, saying it would allow the prime minister to appoint someone to the key post “who [does] not have to meet minimum professional threshold conditions of experience, skills or suitability.”

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, one of the petitioning organizations, said following Tuesday’s hearing that it was critical for a professional party to evaluate both the suitability and the qualifications of a candidate. Without such a review, the new civil service commissioner would be a political appointment, and all his appointments within the service would similarly be tainted by politics, the organization contends.