Vogelman retires as Supreme Court president in shadow of severe judiciary-gov’t clash
Outgoing Supreme Court acting president laments justice minister’s efforts to weaken judiciary in parting speech, chastises him for refusing to appoint a new permanent president
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman formally stepped down from his post on Tuesday having reached the mandatory age of retirement of 70, and after being lauded for his contribution to jurisprudence in Israel during his long career during a retirement ceremony at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem.
In front of the other 12 serving justices, Vogelman emphasized in his parting speech from the bench what he said was the critical importance of judicial independence in protecting civil rights, upholding the rule of law, and protecting democracy in Israel, and criticized efforts by the government to weaken the judiciary since it took office.
Justice Isaac Amit will now pick up the judicial baton as head of the court, albeit only as acting president for the moment until a permanent president is appointed by the Judicial Selection Committee, which may take place sometime in November.
Vogelman has served as acting president since October last year due to Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s refusal to appoint a permanent president since that time, although Vogelman had already ruled himself out as a candidate for the position since he would only have a year before his mandatory retirement.
Vogelman’s tenure as acting president was characterized by severe tensions between the judiciary and the government, Levin in particular, due to the latter’s desire and efforts to exert greater government control over the judiciary.
This clash came to a head just last month, after the Supreme Court in its function as the High Court of Justice ordered Levin to call a vote for president, which has been followed by even further efforts by the justice minister to obstruct that process, as well as his denunciations of the judiciary as an all-powerful regime of legal governance.
The traditional ceremony for the departing Supreme Court president was conducted in the presence not just of the serving justices, but all living former court presidents, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, State Attorney Amit Aisman, several former Supreme Court justices and numerous other legal dignitaries.
Levin’s policies came in for strident criticism from Vogelman in his speech, although he did not reference the minister by name, as well as from the attorney general, both of whom asserted that Levin’s judicial overhaul agenda and his actions in office in recent months seek to undermine the judiciary and would severely harm Israeli democracy.
And both figures notably piled on further criticism over Levin’s ongoing efforts to block the appointment of Amit, a liberal who Levin opposes, as permanent president of the Supreme Court.
Levin, for his part, remained po-faced and unmoving throughout the speeches by both figures who have stymied numerous aspects of his agenda since he took office at the beginning of the current government.
“The executive branch of government in our system [of governance] has unprecedented power,” asserted Vogelman, due to what he said was its control over the Knesset and the lack of checks and balances inherent in other democracies, and asserted that “the need for effective judicial review” of government actions was therefore crucial.
Scolding Levin for blocking the appointment of a permanent president, Vogelman said it was also crucial to fill the now three empty spots on the Supreme Court bench which Levin has also refused to do.
“In this way, we can ensure that the court will continue to fill its critical function in defense of the rule of law and human rights in Israel,” averred Vogelman.
In more personal aspects of his speech, Vogelman talked of his four-decades-long legal career, and his twenty-four years as a judge, first on the Tel Aviv District court and then on the Supreme Court for 16 years, choking with emotion when he acknowledged that he would now be hanging up his judicial gown.
“Throughout its seventy-six years of existence, the State of Israel bravely faced an array of diverse challenges, and maintained its social resilience, and its Jewish and democratic identity,” concluded Vogelman, referencing the current military conflicts Israel is embroiled in.
“I believe with all my heart that the same resilience will be maintained even in dealing with the contemporary obstacles facing us. Then as now, the judiciary stands firm and will continue to maintain its stability and independence.”
Addressing the assembled justices and legal worthies before Vogelman, and standing right next to Levin, Baharav-Miara tore into what she said was the justice minister’s attempts to weaken the judiciary, and his refusal to appoint a permanent Supreme Court president.
Without referencing Levin directly, she insisted that “democracy is fragile” and that “efforts to dismantle mechanisms of governance and proper procedure which protect human rights and the rule of law” are still being felt.
Baharav-Miara’s critique referred to efforts by the government to circumvent her offices and assert its own legal interpretations of the law, as well Levin’s obstructionism over the appointment of a new president and refusal to fill empty seats on the Supreme Court bench, which she said were the continuation of Levin’s radical judicial overhaul program to restrain the judiciary which he advanced in the first half of 2023.
“The meaning of a weakened and exhausted Supreme Court by diluting [its bench] is government without oversight, harm to human rights perforce, and the strengthening of dangerous phenomena,” she continues, including the failure to draft ultra-Orthodox men into military service and corruption on her list of such internal dangers currently facing the country.
The attorney general also pointed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech in the UN General Assembly where he highlighted Israel’s “independent courts” in rebuking the International Criminal Court prosecutor for seeking arrest warrants against him and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
“Indeed, there is a lot to be proud of, and we must be careful not to destroy it,” snipes Baharav-Miara.
“Harming the judicial authority at this time is especially damaging. It is not responsible and runs contrary to the national interest.”
Vogelman was born in Tel Aviv in 1954 to a father who survived the Holocaust and fought in Israel’s War of Independence, and a mother who was born in Israel.
Vogelman himself fought in two of Israel’s wars, serving in his mandatory military service as a combatant on the Egyptian front in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and in the First Lebanon War in 1982 as a reservist.
After qualifying as an attorney in 1980, he began working in the State Attorney’s Office in 1982, and in 2000 was appointed to the Tel Aviv District Court. In 2009, he was appointed as a permanent justice to the Supreme Court.
Vogelman had a deep impact on Israeli jurisprudence during his career, and especially during his time on the Supreme Court as a liberal justice, issuing rulings and opinions that advanced the rights of minority groups in Israel.
He was one of the justices who struck down restrictions on access to child surrogacy services for homosexual couples and single men as unconstitutional.
And he penned the central opinion striking down government legislation to hold asylum seekers in detention for a year without trial, writing that the “powerful blow” it did to the liberty and dignity of such people in Israel was also unconstitutional.
During the term of the current government, Vogelman also presided over the unanimous High Court decision in June this year that there is no legal framework anymore for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to be exempted from military service, and that conscription of such men should begin immediately.
And he wrote the majority opinion delaying the so-called recusal law due to its “personal” nature designed to advance Netanyahu’s interests.
“Acting President Judge Uzi Vogelman is a public servant in every sense of the word… A Zionist through and through, with a faithful and unreserved commitment to the fundamental values of the country – as a Jewish and democratic state,” said Baharav-Miara.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for forty years of work for the public.”
