Israel set for dramatic Judicial Selection Committee vote on Wednesday

The Knesset will vote on Wednesday for its representatives in four judicial appointment committees, as tension that has risen for weeks reaches its climax and is likely to determine the course of the ongoing talks at the President's Residence over the government's controversial judicial reforms.

The four committees include the Judicial Selection Committee, which chooses judges at all levels of Israel's court system, and three committees that choose religious court judges – the Dayanim Selection Committee for Jews, the Kadim Selection Committee for Muslims, and the Kadim Madhab Selection Committee for Druze. Each Knesset member will be called and will cast his or her vote for all four committees on one ballot.

The coalition initially decided that the voting in the Knesset plenum will begin at 11:30 a.m., and the results will be published approximately three hours after the voting begins.

The nine-member Judicial Selection Committee includes two representatives from the Knesset. Although not required by law, the coalition traditionally occupies one spot and enables the opposition to occupy the other. The opposition coalesced around representative MK Karin Elharrar (Yesh Atid), but as of Tuesday evening the coalition still had eight candidates: Shas MK Uriel Busso, Otzma Yehudit MKs Yizhak Kroyzer and Limor Son-Harmelech, and Likud MKs Tally Gotliv, Eli Dalal, Moshe Saada, Moshe Pasal and Avichai Boaron.

The leaders of the coalition parties will meet on 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday in order to coordinate their positions regarding who to vote for. The Likud will then hold a faction meeting at 10:00 a.m.

Despite the scheduled meetings, the vote is anonymous, and therefore if more than one coalition candidate remains by the time the vote starts, there is no way to ensure ahead of time that one spot will go to the opposition.

Possible effects of the committee vote on the reform negotiations

Drama will be at its peak as the votes are counted, as the outcome of the Judicial Selection Committee vote is likely to determine the fate of the ongoing talks at the President's Residence. If Elharrar is not elected, both National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz and Yesh Atid chairman MK Yair Lapid threatened that they will leave the talks.

However, if Elharrar is chosen, the coalition and opposition could reach agreements within a short amount of time over two relatively minor issues in the reform. The first would enable government ministers to hire private representation when their policies are challenged in court if the Attorney-General does not agree to represent them, and the second would limit the Supreme Court's ability to use the "reasonableness factor" when evaluating the legality of government decisions.

If the talks blow up, the coalition may choose to continue with some of the judicial reform bills without agreement. This will likely lead to an increase in protests.

A group of activists within the Likud called "Forum Dror" that support the judicial reforms sent messages to the party's MKs on Tuesday demanding that the coalition not give the opposition a spot on the committee.

"Without transparent and clear agreements between the coalition and opposition that are worth something, the opposition should not be given a spot on the Judicial Selection Committee," the group said, adding that "the opposition already has three judges in the committee, and probably two members of the Israel Bar Association. They do not need another representative, and surely not Karin Elharrar."

A number of other politicians commented on Tuesday on the upcoming vote, with each side blaming the other for trying to blow up the talks.

In a long post on Facebook, Boaron, who has been one of the more vocal Likud MKs in favor of the reforms in recent weeks, wrote that Israelis were "expecting and hoping" to reach agreements, but if agreements are not reached, the 'reasonableness clause' and attorney-general law must be passed, and then the rest of the judicial system should be fixed."

On the other hand, MK Chili Tropper, who is a representative of National Unity at the talks at the President's Residence, said that "there are those in the coalition who are trying to blow up the talks and prevent broad agreements," by trying to appoint two members of the coalition to the Judicial System Committee.

"One should hope that Netanyahu and the responsible elements in the coalition act responsibly tomorrow, out of national and not political considerations," so that the committee can form according to its traditional makeup, Tropper said.

According to current law, the 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 of each of the judges, ministers, MKs and IBA representatives must be a woman.

The makeup of the committee is one of the most contentious issues in the government’s judicial reforms.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin and other proponents of the judicial reforms argue that the Bar Association members have an interest in siding with the judges before whom they appear in court. This gives the judges a de facto majority in the committee and the ability to choose whomever they see fit. Levin argued that the elected representatives of the people should be the ones appointing the nation’s judges, and therefore proposed to amend the committee’s makeup such that the coalition has a majority.

The opposition, however, argued that giving the coalition complete power over judicial appointments will turn these appointments into part of the political give-and-take, and thus create a system where judges are chosen due to their political affiliations and not their skill or expertise.

The Supreme Court members of the committee are Chief Justice Esther Hayut, justice Uzi Fogelman and justice Yizhak Amit; the second minister has yet to be chosen, but Ynet reported on Monday that Netanyahu was considering appointing National Missions Minister Orit Struk (Religious Zionist Party); the two Knesset members will be elected on Wednesday; and the Israel Bar Association is voting for its chairperson and executive committee on June 20, and will choose its representatives on the committee soon after.

The committee could therefore be ready to convene by the end of June. However, the justice minister has the power to decide if and when the committee convenes, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin may choose not to do so.