Attorney-general warns of judicial foul play amid delays in Supreme Court appointments - analysis

Israel’s government is continuing its attempts to “dismantle governing mechanisms” via its judicial reforms, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara cautioned at the retiring ceremony of Interim Supreme Court Chief Justice Uzi Vogelman in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

One of the attempts to weaken the High Court was the year-long delay in appointing a permanent chief justice and filling two vacancies on the bench, as well as filling the third vacancy now opening due to Vogelman retirement, Baharav-Miara said.

“The meaning of a weakened and exhausted Supreme Court due to its shrinking is government without oversight,” the attorney-general said. This leads to “definite violations of human rights” and “growth of dangerous phenomenon, such as appointing confidantes based on connections and not skill; inequality in bearing the burden of the war on one hand, and in enjoying government resources, on the other; and government corruption,” Baharav-Miara said, adding that the “definite” outcome was “harm to citizens and to the state’s resilience.”

The attorney-general’s comments were a direct criticism of Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s conduct in recent months. As head of the Judicial Appointments Committee, Levin, who attended the ceremony but did not give a speech, has refrained from appointing a permanent chief justice since former chief justice Esther Hayut’s retirement in October 2023, due to his opposition to the “seniority” tradition, whereby the longest-tenured judge is elected chief justice.

In addition, Levin has refrained from filling the soon-to-be three vacancies, due to his insistence on filling at least one of them with a judge of his personal choice.

Postponing the inevitable 

The delay in appointing a chief justice led the High Court in September to order Levin to begin the election process.

The court’s ruling, which Baharav-Miara echoed in her speech on Tuesday, was that while Levin had the authority to set the Judicial Appointments Committee’s agenda, he did not have the authority to continuously delay the appointment of the head of the entire judicial system. Levin responded by listing all 12 justices as candidates and ignoring letters from 10 of them to rescind their candidacy, in an attempt both to delay the proceedings and embarrass some of the judges during the vetting process.

Vogelman retirement will officially come into effect on October 6, and he will be replaced by Justices Yizhak Amit, who will also serve as interim chief justice. Amit and Justice Yosef Elron were the only justices not to rescind their candidacy.