Supreme Court Justice Yael Willner appointed to Judicial Selection Committee

The Supreme Court chooses Justice Yael Willner to serve on the Judicial Selection Committee in place of Justice Daphne Barak Erez, who has now completed a three-year term on the powerful panel that makes all judicial appointments to Israel’s courts.

The three justices who serve on the nine-member committee are usually selected by seniority on the Supreme Court.

Justice David Mintz was appointed three months before Willner in 2017, but the law requires that at least one of the three Supreme Court justices on the committee be a woman.

Since the other two members of the court are men – Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and Deputy President Noam Sohlberg – Willner is chosen as the new member.

The committee will in all likelihood not convene until a new government is formed after the upcoming election. Legislation passed by the outgoing government changing the composition of the panel and the judicial appointments process will then go into effect.

Under that law, the committee would still have three Supreme Court justices, but the new law enables the panel to appoint new Supreme Court judges without input from the three justices — meaning the votes of the other six members of the panel will be enough —  severely reducing their influence on the committee and boosting that of politicians on the panel.

Opposition parties have vowed to repeal the law if they form a government after the elections.