Levin declares he doesn’t recognize new Supreme Court president, vows to boycott him

Justice Minister Yariv Levin declares he does not recognize the election of Justice Isaac Amit as Supreme Court president, that he will boycott Amit as head of the court, and that he will refuse to cooperate on the essential business of the judiciary requiring the collaboration of the Supreme Court president and the justice minister.

Key appointments within the judiciary, such as presidents of district courts and crucial administrative positions, need the cooperation of the justice minister and the Supreme Court president but would be impossible to make as long as Levin continues to boycott Amit.

In a letter to Israel Courts Administration Judge Tzahi Ouziel who led Sunday’s hearing of the Judicial Selection Committee, Levin describes the process by which Amit was elected as having been conducted “by the authority of High Court orders, through the unlawful expropriation of my authority as chairman of the committee,” and as being “an illegal process, and illegitimate to its foundations.”

The justice minister also protests the vote to appoint Amit owing to recent allegations of misconduct against the justice, specifically that he presided over cases in which he had conflicts of interest.

Levin says that Amit’s appointment without a “thorough examination of all the allegations” was a “moral disgrace and an action in total contravention of proper administration, as well as norms established by the High Court itself in relation to candidates for public office. Amit has said that the allegations ignore key facts which excluded the possibility that he had a conflict of interest in them.

Levin had sought to further delay the appointment of a president to examine the claims against Amit, but the High Court on Friday said the relevant body to do so at present was the Judicial Selection Committee and ordered that the vote be held.

Levin has refused to appoint a new ombudsman for the judiciary who would ordinarily have investigated the allegations against Amit.

“I hereby announce unambiguously that I do not recognize Justice Isaac Amit as head of the Supreme Court, and the processes in which he was ‘elected’ are illegitimate to their foundation, and unlawful,” declares Levin.

Over the course of the last 16 months, Levin has refused to hold a vote for a new Supreme Court president since he wished to install a conservative to the position but lacked the votes on the Judicial Selection Committee to do so.

After nearly a year of such delays, the Supreme Court acting in its capacity as the High Court of Justice, ruled that although Levin as chairman of the committee has some discretion over when to call a vote he could not indefinitely refuse to make the appointment,. It further stated that this would give him a veto of the position which the law never intended to grant the minister.

It ruled in September last year that the appointment must be made “in short order,” then ordered Levin in December to do so by January 16, then in January that ordered him to make the appointment by January 26 after Levin sought more time to clarify the allegations against Amit, and then again this past Friday instructed him that the vote must be held on January 26 despite a new request for a delay.