Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s ‘governance reform’: The changes in the composition of the committee for the selection of judges will lead to a change in the face of the Supreme Court, since the government will have an absolute majority in the committee for the selection of judges, including the selection of public representatives.
According to the report of Amit Segal, the senior political commentator of News 12, the committee that elects the judges will increase from nine to 11 members, with seven of them being from the coalition – which will guarantee the government control of the majority, so that it can appoint whoever it wants, since in order to appoint supreme judges you need 7 friends
The manner of distribution, according to the Levin plan, will be as follows:
Representatives “on behalf” of the government:
• 3 ministers from the government – the Minister of Justice and two other ministers (one of them – an addition to the new composition).
• 2 Knesset members from the coalition (one of them – an addition to the new composition).
• 2 public representatives appointed by the Minister of Justice (they will replace the representatives of the Bar Association).
Representatives who are not “on behalf” of the government:
• 3 judges – the president of the Supreme Court and 2 other supreme judges.
• 1 Knesset member from the opposition who is a member of the committee traditionally.
In addition, the vote in the Knesset behind the curtain for the election of representatives, which was a source of surprises that helped the opposition, will be canceled. From now on, the heads of the Knesset and Constitution committees from the coalition and the State Audit Committee from the opposition will automatically serve on the committee.
So basically, five of the six politicians on the committee will be on behalf of the coalition and the two public representatives will be chosen by it – and thus the majority needed for the appointments of seven members will belong to the coalition.
In this way, the judges’ veto, which was sometimes obtained, while cooperating with the opposition, will no longer be effective.
This is what the committee for selecting judges will look like according to Levin’s new plan:
More on Levin’s reform: the majority required to disqualify laws will be 12 out of 15 judges, and the majority to overcome disqualification will be 61 Knesset members.
Meanwhile, for the first time since taking office, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Supreme Court President Ester Hayut today held an introductory meeting at her office in Jerusalem.
It seems that it is no coincidence that Levin and Hayat did not report a good meeting and no picture of it was published, as is customary.