Justice Minister Gideon Saar announced today (Thursday) six more candidates for the Supreme Court: Adv. Ofer Bartel – a veteran criminal defense attorney with a law firm who represented Shula Zaken in the Holyland case; Adv. Eli Wilczyk – heads the Cohen law firm -Wilchik and deals with administrative-public law; Adv. Yechiel Kasher – partner in the Tadmor firm specializing in commercial-civil litigation; Adv. Yair Asael – partner and director of the litigation department at the Ephraim Abramson firm; Adv. Ofer Tzur – partner in the Gornitzky firm and head of the litigation department; and Judge Yifat Sheetrit-Hadad of the Nazareth District Court.
To date, no agreement has been reached regarding the appointment of four Supreme Court justices, so Saar has announced the six additional candidates. The main reason for the lack of agreement was the opposition of some of the members of the committee for the appointment of judges to two of the candidates presented by the bureau – attorneys Kobi Sharvit and Nati Simchoni. The bureau was therefore looking for additional candidates to be agreed upon by a majority of the committee members.
The meeting of the Judicial Selection Committee was scheduled to take place in November, but was postponed due to the lack of agreements.
The three most prominent candidates so far are District Judges Ruth Ronen and Khaled Kabov from the Economic Department of the Tel Aviv District Court and Jerusalem District Court Judge Galia Kanfei-Steinitz, the wife of MK Yuval Steinitz.
The committee is expected to convene on February 22 to elect the judges.