The Knesset Constitution Committee on Tuesday finished voting on the approximately 70,000 revisions filed by opposition MKs on a bill proposal to alter the makeup of the committee responsible for electing all of Israel’s judges.
Opposition MKs decided to boycott part of the voting after committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman refused their requests to postpone it. The requests came after family members of hostages criticized the government for endangering the hostages by the return to war in Gaza.
Lishai Miran, wife of hostage Omri Miran, said during the meeting, “I woke up again this morning to the question, ‘Mother, why are you not bringing father Omri back from Gaza?’ With all of the votes you are holding here, I also ask – why are you not returning Omri from Gaza?”
Miran added that the bombing “may have killed” her husband, and pleaded that the committee cease its meeting and focus on returning the hostages.
"While the government yesterday made the decision to resume the fighting, which at the very least poses a dramatic risk to the lives of the hostages, here in the Knesset everything continues as usual, as planes circle over Gaza and the D9 bulldozer rushes toward the Supreme Court. This is an unfathomable level of indifference,” Democrats MK Gilad Kariv said during the meeting.
"I urge you to close the discussion and not advance it even one step further. Give space to the cries of the families. Any progress in the discussion would be turning your back on their outcry, and we must not close our hearts, ears, and eyes,” Kariv said during the discussion.
Working its way through Knesset
With the revisions out of the way, the bill will now head to the Knesset Home Committee, which will grant procedural approval to the bill. The procedural approval is necessary since Rothman repeatedly changed the bill’s wording, and the final version included newly changed elements. The bill in the coming days will then return to the Constitution Committee for final approval, after which it will return to the Knesset plenum, where it will go up for its second and third readings, and then become law. the coalition aims to pass the bill into law prior to the Knesset’s Passover recess on April 2.
The Judicial Selection Committee’s makeup since Israel’s foundation has included nine members – three High Court judges, two ministers, two members of Knesset (traditionally one coalition and one opposition), and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association (IBA). 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 high court appointments will revert back to 5-4 instead of the current 7-2. However, every high 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 high 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 Yizhar Shai, and former Fire and Rescue Service head Dedi Simchi. Shai has since 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 would only apply in the next Knesset.
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.
