MK Eliyahu Rabivo has proposed a bill that aims to reform the appointment process for the chairman of the Central Elections Committee. Under the current system, the chairman is appointed by the President of the Supreme Court and is usually a serving or retired judge from the same court. This creates a conflict of interest when individuals petition against the committee’s decisions in cases that require a High Court review. Rabivo’s bill suggests that the Knesset Speaker and the Central Elections Committee should jointly appoint the chairman. Furthermore, the appointee should not be a serving or retired Supreme Court judge to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. The proposal has garnered support from right-wing politicians, but the opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized it, questioning the Likud party’s motive. The current Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karai, submitted a similar bill in 2020, highlighting that such a change would strengthen Israeli democracy.
MK Eliyahu Rabivo submitted a bill stating that the chairman of the Central Elections Committee will be appointed by the Speaker of the Knesset and by the Central Elections Committee. In addition, he will not be a serving or retired supreme judge and will not be appointed by the supreme president as was the case until now .
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Knesset member Rabivo stated: “The time has come for the central election commission, which has a particularly significant and central role in the management of the democratic process in Israel, to no longer have a situation of conflict of interest in which the chief justice who heads it is also the de facto colleague of the judges of the High Court who hear the petitions against the commission’s decisions . Therefore, the bill that I am promoting will make it possible to appoint a chairman of the election committee who will not have such an obvious conflict of interest while strengthening Israeli democracy. I intend to promote this proposal with all the tools at my disposal together with my friends in the national camp, as we promised to our voters from the right-wing parties. I suggest to my friends, Knesset member Rotman, who will study the bill in depth and will not publish an automatic response against it just because he is not knowledgeable enough about the subject. I am sure that after he gets to know it, he too will support it wholeheartedly.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid posted a response on his Twitter account: “Now the Likud is trying to take over the Central Election Committee. Why go round and round? Let them announce that from now on there will be no elections in Israel unless they win and we will be done with it.”
The current Minister of Communications Shlomo Karai submitted the bill in 2020, in which it was written: “The law today states that the chairman of the Central Election Commission will be a serving judge of the Supreme Court who will be chosen by the President of the Supreme Court. This situation creates substantial conflicts of interest in the event of an appeal against the results Or about the election procedure. In cases where it is necessary to petition the High Court, a situation arises where petitioners are petitioning against the chairman of the election committee who is a colleague of the supreme judges and works with them on an ongoing basis. It is proposed that the chairman of the central election committee be appointed according to the recommendation of the speaker of the Knesset by the plenum of the central election committee, and in any case there will not be a serving or retired supreme judge. It is not possible that petitions about such an important and critical process as elections in a democratic country will be presented to the colleagues of the chairman of the central election committee, against whose decisions they are petitioning.”