Judicial selection committee to appoint chief justice and deputy Sunday

The Judicial Selection Committee convenes to appoint Israel's new chief justice.

By ELIAV BREUER JANUARY 26, 2025 17:13 Updated: JANUARY 26, 2025 17:14

Justice Minister Yariv Levin seen in the Knesset plenum, in Jerusalem, December 4, 2024 (photo credit: FLASH90/CHAIM GOLDBERG)

The Judicial Selection Committee is convening Sunday to appoint a permanent Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice. The electees will, with near certainty, be judges Yizhak Amit and Noam Solberg.

The vote will end a saga that began in late October 2023 with the retirement of previous chief Justice Esther Hayut. Amit was next in line based on the “seniority” tradition, where the longest-serving judge becomes Chief Justice.

However, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who opposed the “seniority” tradition and preferred conservative Yosef Elron as chief justice, refrained from holding the vote. Then-deputy chief justice Uzi Fogelman took over as interim Chief Justice, but Fogelman retired in October 2024. Amit took over as interim Chief Justice. Levin also refrained from filling the vacancies created by the departure of Hayut, Fogelman, and Judge Anat Baron, who retired alongside Hayut in 2023.

The law says that when a Chief Justice retires, the justice minister must convene the Judicial Selection Committee to appoint the next Chief Justice. The law does not lay out a timeframe. The High Court ruled in September that the justice minister did not have the authority to delay the appointment indefinitely and ordered him to appoint a permanent chief justice. Levin did not do so, and in a hearing in December over whether Levin should be held in contempt of court, the judges defined a deadline – January 16 – to fulfill its orders. On January 16, the court granted Levin 10 more days in order to bring information regarding allegations of a number of conflict-of-interest violations by Amit before the committee.

The allegations, which emerged in a series of reports over the past two weeks, included unreported court proceedings by the Tel Aviv Municipality against a series of owners of a building in Tel Aviv, including Amit and his brother; a series of cases that Amit oversaw that involved First International Bank of Israel and Dor Alon, despite his brother being involved in these companies at different points; alleged building infractions in Amit’s home in Mevaseret Zion; and a ruling regarding boards of directors of government companies, that allegedly could have affected his brother.

THE HIGH COURT of Justice holds a session. In the past, the court ruled that women cannot be forced to take a specific seat on a bus, the writer notes. (credit: DEBBIE HILL/REUTERS)

'Coordinated smear campaign'

Amit refuted all of the allegations, and called the series of reports a “coordinated smear campaign”. Regarding the building in Tel Aviv, he explained that in order to avoid any semblance of a conflict of interest, he had given his brother full legal stewardship and was not involved in the case; that the cases involving First International Bank of Israel, Dor Alon, and the boards of directors were either not during the period his brother was involved, or very general such that he did not need to recuse himself as there was no conflict of interest; and that there were no building infractions, as renovations were done with the necessary permits.

Levin, and fellow coalition members on the committee, National Missions Minister Orit Strok and Otzma Yehudit MK Yizhak Kroyzer, boycotted the Judicial Selection Committee meeting on Sunday.

Amit revealed in an exchange of letters with Levin last week that the justice minister in 2024 has attempted to cut a deal, whereby he would permit Amit’s appointment to chief justice in exchange for Amit’s agreement to appoint as least one of Levin’s personal preferences to fill one of the vacancies on the High Court bench. Levin has said that he wants to appoint either Dr. Aviad Bakshi, head of the legal department in Kohelet Policy Forum, or Dr. Rafi Bitton to the bench. The former is head of the Both were involved in formulating the controversial judicial reforms of 2023.

Amit refused, saying he would not agree to appoint someone he viewed as unqualified to sit on the bench.

The refusal to appoint Bakshi or Bitton led to Levin to formulate a new bill proposal alongside Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to alter the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee. Among other provisions, the new proposal gives representatives of the coalition and opposition mutual veto power on High Court appointments, but says that if two vacancies remain open for a year, each side can propose three candidates, out of which the other side must pick one. The bill is currently being prepared for its second and third reading in the Knesset Constitution Committee. According to its current version, it will only take effect beginning with the next Knesset.