Coalition intends to further weaken the Israel Bar Association, MK says

The coalition intends to pass a bill that would make membership in the Israel Bar Association voluntary, Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky said in the Knesset late Monday.

The bill would significantly weaken the IBA and is widely viewed as part of the government’s controversial judicial reforms. The IBA has two representatives on the committee responsible for electing judges in all courts, and weakening the IBA will increase the power of the government’s representatives in the committee—and thus increase the government’s influence over judicial selections.

Milwidsky’s comments on Monday night came during a debate in the Knesset plenum with a different bill that he authored, which will also likely weaken the IBA by affecting its budget. The bill eventually passed its first reading, and will now be prepared for its second and third reading in the Knesset Constitution Committee.

The bill being debated proposed that the IBA may only use budgets it accrued from membership fees for purposes deemed “essential” to IBA operations, such as producing the bar examination twice a year and managing the array of internships, and ban the use of these funds for purposes such as professional conferences or training.

Milwidsky and other coalition members argued that the membership fee, which is mandatory to practice law in Israel, should not go towards “political” purposes. They gave as examples the IBA’s support and participation in protests against the judicial reforms in 2023.

However, IBA head Adv. Amit Becher, government and Knesset legal advisers, and members of the opposition, said the IBA was an independent organization that had the right to set its own fees without government intervention; that conferences and professional training were imperative to maintain high-quality legal practitioners; and that the coalition’s real purpose was to threaten the IBA with damaging legislation in an attempt to force its members on the Judicial Selection Committee to acquiesce to government demands.

Becher said he was told explicitly by figures close to Justice Minister Yariv Levin that if his representatives on the committee supported Levin, the bill would “go away.”

Levin convenes committee 

Levin, who chairs the nine-member selection committee, convened it on Thursday after the High Court of Justice ruled that he did not have the authority to continue delaying the appointment of a permanent chief justice.

Levin has refrained from holding the vote since the previous chief justice, Esther Hayut, retired in October 2023, because the leading candidate, Yitzhak Amit, will likely be appointed – contrary to Levin’s wishes to appoint the conservative justice Yosef Elron to the position.

Despite the High Court’s order to Levin to convene the committee “to appoint a chief justice,” Levin did not hold a vote in the committee meeting on Thursday. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel responded by petitioning the High Court to charge Levin with contempt of court, and the High Court will hear the petition on December 12.