Outgoing state ombudsman for judges criticizes justice minister’s failure to appoint replacement

Outgoing State Ombudsman for Judges Uri Shoham is sharply critical of the failure to appoint a replacement for him in a thinly veiled attack on Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

Levin has refused to appoint a retired Supreme Court justice to replace Shoham, with Levin ally and fellow judicial overhaul architect MK Simcha Rothman describing such an appointment as a “conflict of interest.”

In a parting letter to his office, Shoham, a former Supreme Court justice himself, writes that this will be the first time in over two decades since the department was established that there will be no serving state ombudsman for judges.

“Since a new ombudsman has not been appointed, the Ombudsman’s Office cannot complete its handling of complaints for which a decision has not yet been made; [cannot] deal with new complaints submitted to it; and [cannot] handle the financial declarations that rabbinical judges and sharia judges are obliged to submit, according to the law,” writes Shoham.

He notes pointedly that it has been customary for “justice ministers and presidents of the Supreme Court” to appoint a retired Supreme Court justice ever since the Ombudsman’s Office was created.

“I see there to be a severe injury to the rule of law and public trust in the judicial system by the fact that a new ombudsman for public complaints for judges has not been appointed,” concludes Shoham.

The Kan public broadcaster reports that Levin had agreed to appoint former Tel Aviv District Court judge David Rozen, who convicted Ehud Olmert in the Holyland affair, but that Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman has strongly opposed Rozen’s appointment.