(21 February 2023)
Our Declaration of Independence promises that the State of Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”
As of today, those foundational commitments and guarantees are under direct and tangible threat, from the very government charged with upholding them.
(14.11.2023)
Members of the Judicial Appointments Committee are looking into the option of initiating a motion to elect Justice Isaac Amit as the president of the Supreme Court, despite the opposition of Justice Minister Yariv Levin.
(November 12, 2023)
(November 5, 2023)
In a letter from his lawyer to the Supreme Court, Justice Minister Yariv Levin pledged to convene the Judicial Appointments Committee within 15 days. The court had been scheduled to hear challenges to his hold-ups, which have resulted in backlogs in filling vacated bench positions.
„The justice minister believes there is no justification for being preoccupied with disputes during a war,“ the letter said.
The compromise, as reported, aimed to freeze all further judicial overhaul legislation in return for granting the coalition more power on the Judicial Selection Committee in the form of veto power on the selection of the Supreme Court president and lower court judges.
But today’s report says Netanyahu was adamant that any freeze still allow a potential “override clause” to be legislated with a regular majority, in the event that the High Court of Justice nullifies the government’s law shielding the premier from being ordered by courts or the attorney general to step down.
(August 8, 2023 at 10:09 a.m. EDT)
4. What else is planned?
• Changing the way judges are chosen. Currently, Supreme Court justices are selected by a committee made up of two ministers, two lawmakers (one of whom is traditionally from the opposition), two members of the bar association and three justices. The government wants to increase the role of politicians in picking judges but the details are still being debated. Some suggestions are to shift the balance of legal professionals and politicians on the committee, others to remove the judges and bar members entirely, replacing them with a mix of coalition and opposition politicians. Netanyahu says he will seek consensus and will wait till November before making his next move.
(August 7, 2023 / 23:03)
Officials in Israel‘s legal system said on Monday that they heard a threat from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he said he would complete legislation to change the way judges are selected after a bill already making its way through the Knesset requires only a final vote.
The panel for selecting judges now comprises three Supreme Court justices, two Cabinet ministers, two parliamentarians and two lawyers. A vote of at least 7-2 is required to approve an appointment, a threshold designed to encourage compromise.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will discuss the lack of meetings by the Judicial Selection Committee in September.
(28.06.2023)
Thanks to a law that Israel inherited from the British Mandate dictatorship, the interior minister holds the power to disband a municipality. The minister is barred from using it in the year preceding local elections. But once those elections are over later this year, this government can depose as many mayors and local and regional council heads as it wants. It can eliminate city council members and replace them with government loyalists.
The interior minister can easily find a pretext for “faulty performance” in any locale. And what will the deposed mayors do then? The Supreme Court will be unable to deem the decision to fire them “unreasonable,” because this standard will no longer be available.
(today)
The new law certainly does damage to Israel’s democracy — for example, it opens the door to corruption — but whether the court will determine it denies the democratic nature of the state is very much an open question.
A more plausible scenario is that the Supreme Court will wait it out to see if other components of the proposed overhaul will pass, especially those dealing with judicial appointments, weakening the independence of legal counsels within government ministries, and limits on judicial review of legislation.
They are simply trying to obscure the legal overhaul’s goals until they gain control of the Judicial Appointments Committee and pass a law enabling the Knesset to override Supreme Court rulings – the only thing they need to run wild constitutionally. I
The Knesset passed in a preliminary vote on Wednesday a bill to dismantle the Israel Bar Association and replace it with a politically appointed council. The bill would replace the bar association with a “lawyer’s council” with its head appointed by the justice minister.
The bar association selects two people named to the Judicial Appointments Committee, whose composition the coalition seeks to alter in its favor. Last month, the election for its leadership saw the candidate backed by opponents of the judicial overhaul overwhelmingly defeating his rival, a supporter of the overhaul.
Despite breaking off compromise talks last month, Yesh Atid and National Unity party heads say that it is still “possible to reach agreements, it is possible to make changes in the judicial system for the good of Israeli citizens and not for the tyranny of the majority and corrupt appointments.”
The nine-member Judicial Selection Committee includes three High Court justices, one of whom is the chief justice; two ministers, one of whom is the justice minister; two Knesset members; and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association (IBA). One each of the judges, ministers, MKs and IBA representatives must be a woman.
The committee is responsible for appointing judges at all levels of Israel‘s civil court system.
(17.06.2023)
ומי שהצביעו עבור קארין אלהרר ופנינה תמנו שטה היו גם חברי הכנסת של ש״ס, בהוראה של דרעי ואולי אף דרעי בעצמו, ובידיעת נתניהו, גנץ ולפיד.
האינטרס של לפיד וגנץ היה להראות ״הישג״ בהצבעה בכנסת, האינטרס של נתניהו היה להקפיא את ההפיכה המשטרית על מנת להגיע לוושינגטון ולמסמס את המחאה, והאינטרס של דרעי היה להמשיך את השיחות בבית הנשיא על מנת לסלול את דרכו לממשלה.
נתניהו ודרעי הבינו שללא נציגת האופוזיציה בוועדה תקום סערה ציבורית והכל יתפוצץ. לכן פעלו כפי שפעלו בתיאום מלא עם גנץ ולפיד.
ולכן גם ההודעה של גנץ ולפיד, שהם משהים את השיחות עד לבחירת נציג הקואליציה לוועדה וכינוסה, גם האמירה הזאת היא עבודה בעיניים, הכל בלוף.
זה פשוט המשך שיתוף פעולה, וחלק מאותה הסכמה של גנץ ולפיד להכשיר את דרעי ולהכניסו לממשלה.
גנץ ולפיד הרימו דגל לבן, ועשו מכירת חיסול של הציבור הליברלי במדינת ישראל.
לצערי זו האמת מאחורי השיחות בבית הנשיא וההצבעה בכנסת ביום רביעי.
(17.06.2023)
“The picture that arises is that everything that happened on Wednesday in the Knesset vote for the Judicial Appointments Committee was one big show, behind which there was a four-way deal between [National Unity Party chief Benny] Gantz and [Opposition leader Yair] Lapid on one side and Netanyahu and [Shas leader Arye] Dery on the other,” Lieberman posted on his Twitter account.
“The interest of Lapid and Gantz is to show ‘an achievement’ in the Knesset vote, Netanyahu’s interest is to freeze the [judicial overhaul] so he can go to Washington and soften the protests, and Dery’s interest is to continue the talks at the President’s Residence to pave his path back to the government,” he wrote.
(June 15, 2023)
But it may well be a Pyrrhic victory, writes @noa_landau
(Jun 12, 2023)
A compromise agreement between coalition and opposition lawmakers over the government‘s judicial overhaul is expected to be reached as early as Wednesday, opposition MK Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday.
According to the Yisrael Beitenu chairman, the agreement will come after the opposition candidate for the Judicial Appointments Committee, MK Karine Elharrar of Yesh Atid, is elected to the position.
Effective public diplomacy and political organization resulted in several coalition MKs showing national responsibility: In the secret ballot, they joined with the opposition in voting for an opposition MK on the committee. This expansion of the ranks of the coup’s opponents is good news for the battle to save democracy.