JNS
Leftwing critics of the legislation said it compromises judges' independence, whereas a prominent rightwing activist said it was too mild.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin celebrated the passage on Thursday of a law increasing the influence of elected politicians on the appointment of judges as a belated remedy for what he sees as the process's lack of democratic representation.
The leaders of Israel’s opposition, meanwhile, vowed to cancel the coalition-backed legislation, which relates to a key element of the judicial reform that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have pledged to deliver.
“Today, after decades of silencing of your voice, of your vote being trampled on, we are turning over a new leaf. The days of submission and the days of silence are gone forever. From today on, our voice at the ballot box has meaning. Our worldview is respected. We and our children will receive equal opportunity, including in the legal system,” Levin said after the bill became law following a 17-hour filibuster.
The law changes the Judicial Selection Committee’s composition but only as of the next Knesset. It replaces two spots held by representatives of the Israel Bar Association, which tend to vote in unison with the three judges on the panel, with two attorneys appointed by Knesset members – one by the opposition and another by the coalition.
The leader of the opposition, which walked out of the vote on the law, condemned the legislation and vowed to overturn it.
“In the next government, we will ensure that the law to change the committee for selecting judges is repealed,” read the joint statement by opposition leader Yair Lapid, the leader of the National Union party Benny Gantz, Yisrael Beytenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman and the chairman of The Democrats, Yair Golan. The law passed Thursday has “one goal—to ensure that judges become subject to the will of politicians,” they added.
Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, said the new law “casts a heavy political shadow over the judicial system and harms its professionalism, independence and ability to criticize the government.”
Enough democracy?
Some prominent figures on the Israeli right also criticized the law because they thought it didn’t democratize the selection process enough.
“I don’t support the Judicial Selection Committee bill because that committee should have only representatives of the legislative branch,” Ronen Shoval, co-founder of the influential Im Tirzu group and head of the Argaman Institute for Advanced Studies, a conservative think tank, wrote on X.
He added: “Regardless, we can all relax. The Kaplanists and journalists screaming that it’s the end of democracy don’t believe what they’re saying, it’s an insult to their intelligence.”
Kaplan is the name of a street in Tel Aviv that has been the focus on protests against the judicial reform that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been promoting since it took office in 2022. The democratization of the Judicial Selection Committee has been a pillar of the reform.
Supporters of judicial reform have argued that the judges on the committee, voting with Bar Association representatives, enjoyed a de facto majority on the panel, leading to ideological homogeneity on the bench.
Its opponents argue that the new law gives the political echelon too much influence over the judicial branch.
Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich presented the law as an election promise delivered. “We promised we’d fix the judicial system with a detailed plan and we were elected to do that. And today we took a significant and important step in our plan, acting out of dialogue and national responsibility,” he wrote on X.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a centrist coalition partner of Netanyahu who has in the past criticized the way in which the government went about the judicial reform, defended the legislation.
The law ensures that “the election of judges for all instances will be made only with broad consensus across all camps—coalition and opposition. The judges' veto on the election of justices to the Supreme Court will be abolished. Representatives of the Bar Association will be replaced by lawyers who are public representatives,” Sa’ar and Levin wrote in a joint statement.
The law “will ensure true diversity of the judicial system, broad representation and the opportunity for excellent lawyers who have been denied appointments as judges to date,” they added.
