Yesh Atid, watchdog ask High Court to order Levin to convene judicial selection panel

Yesh Atid and the Movement for Quality Government in Israel (MQG) watchdog group file petitions to the High Court of Justice demanding it order Justice Minister Yariv Levin to explain why he is refusing to convene the Judicial Selection Committee.

The petitions, if accepted, could see the High Court order Levin to assemble the highly sensitive committee, despite his intention to pass legislation to change its composition in order to give the government greater control of the judicial selection process.

The Yesh Atid petition requests the court accept its position on the basis that Levin “lacks the authority” to decide not to convene the critical committee, which selects all judges in Israel.

The petition argues that the decision is also “unreasonable in the extreme,” but says that since the coalition passed its highly controversial law yesterday banning the court from using the judicial tool of reasonableness to review ministerial decisions, Yesh Atid has focused its legal reasoning regarding the failure to convene the committee on the judicial doctrine of lack of authority.

Yesh Atid’s petition claims that Levin’s refusal to convene the committee represents “a blatant violation of the duty of trustworthiness and fairness incumbent upon the respondents,” and does so through the use of “inappropriate considerations rooted in the desire of the justice minister to prevent the regular activity of this very important committee.”

One of Levin’s central goals in the judicial overhaul agenda he drew up is to give the government greater control over the process of selecting judges. The government would not have full control of the Judicial Selection Committee were it to be convened now.

MQG’s petition makes similar claims, basing its demand on the judicial doctrine of “abuse of authority” which it says Levin is engaging in for the sake of “his personal and political considerations.”

Both Yesh Atid and MQG’s petitions point out that there are currently several dozen empty judicial positions and that the courts are over-burdened by cases.