Approximately two years after the Knesset Constitution Committee approved a previous version of a bill to alter the makeup of the committee responsible for electing judges, which led to mass protests and social unrest, the committee on Wednesday began voting on a watered-down version of the same bill.
The committee, chaired by RZP MK Simcha Rothman, completed voting on the first 900 reservations out of over 70,000 filed by opposition MKs in an attempt to delay the proceedings.
The voting is scheduled to resume on Monday. Once approved in the committee, it heads to the Knesset plenum for final voting, after which it will become law. The coalition hopes to pass it into law before the Knesset heads for its Passover recess on April 2.
The Judicial Selection Committee’s makeup since Israel’s foundation has included nine members – three Supreme Court judges, two ministers, two MKs (traditionally one coalition and one opposition), and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association. According to the new proposal, the two IBA members will be replaced by two lawyers, one appointed by the coalition and the other by the opposition.
In addition, according to the proposal, the majority necessary for Supreme Court appointments will revert back to 5-4 instead of the current 7-2. However, every Supreme Court appointment will require the agreement of at least one representative from the opposition and one from the coalition.
Appointments to all other judicial brackets will require approval of one member of the coalition, one from the opposition, and one of the judges.
The proposal also includes a mechanism to prevent a deadlock in Supreme Court appointments. If a year passes with at least two vacancies, the coalition and opposition will each propose three candidates, out of which the other side must choose one (along with the judges). Finally, the law will only apply beginning with the next Knesset.
A draft of the current version was first presented on January 9 as a compromise between Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, and earned the support of two bereaved fathers, former minister Izhar Shay and former Fire and Rescue Service head Dedi Simchi. Shay last week reneged on his support of the bill.
Proponents of the bill argued that it was a worthy compromise, since it did not give the coalition total power over judicial appointments, and will only apply in the next Knesset.
The opposition and the Attorney-General’s Office
However, its detractors, including the opposition, the Attorney-General’s Office, and a wide array of civil society organizations, argued that increasing political involvement in the judicial selection process will negatively affect the court’s independence, as judicial appointments will become part of political negotiations.
Other arguments against the bill were that the “deadlock” mechanism incentivizes the government to delay appointments to eventually force the opposition to choose one of its candidates; that it unnecessarily gave politicians veto power over appointments to lower courts, which could delay appointments and prefer political alignment over professionalism; and that the real reason behind the attempt to remove the IBA representatives from the committee was the fact that its chairman, Amit Becher, who opposes the judicial reforms, beat the coalition’s preferred candidate, Efi Nave, in the race for the chairmanship last year.
The voting session on Wednesday involved a number of shouting matches between MKs. Shas MK Erez Malul asked Democrats MK Gilad Kariv who paid for the hundreds of volunteers who helped compile the enormous amount of reservations.
Kariv shouted in response that unlike Malul’s constituents, who he said avoided IDF service and did not work, the people who compiled the reservations served for prolonged periods in the war, and were devoted citizens who worked for a living and paid their taxes.
Kariv, Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz, and other opposition MKs also voiced anger over a video that circled on Tuesday evening of yeshiva students singing that they “did not believe in the rule of the infidels [the Israeli government]” and would not show up for IDF service. The MKs said the yeshiva in question had received millions of shekels in state funding.