High Court Justice Selection Stalled
|
Two Supreme Court justices have retired in recent months but it looks like it will be a long time before the vacancies are filled, even though the court is overwhelmed with work. The reason for the standstill is the battle between Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak over the candidacy of Hebrew University law professor Ruth Gavison.
Livni wants Gavison, who is one of the strongest critics of Barak's "activism" – his belief that the Knesset's approval in 1992 of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom and the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation signaled a "constitutional revolution" which empowered the Supreme Court to review all regular Knesset legislation.
According to MK Shaul Yahalom (NRP), only three of the members of the Judges' Appointments Committee currently supports Gavison's candidacy. These include Livni, Yahalom and Health Minister Dan Naveh (Likud).
The six members of the committee opposed to Gavison's appointment include Barak, Justices Dorit Beinisch and Eliezer Rivlin, Labor MK Avraham Shohat and the two Bar Association representatives, Benny Levenbok and Yori Guy-Ron.
The Supreme Court justices constitute a solid bloc of three votes under Barak's leadership. Barak opposes Gavison for ideological reasons but is also in principle against appointing representatives of academe to the court. Shohat belongs to the political camp which almost invariably backs the Supreme Court's position.
The balance of power is held by the two Bar Association representatives, Levenbok and Guy-Ron.
Like the justices, Levenbok is opposed to the appointment of academics with no judicial experience to the Supreme Court. Guy-Ron, on the other hand, is pushing for the appointment of Hebrew University Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer to the bench and strongly opposes Gavison.
But Levenbok and Guy-Ron are up for re-election at the end of the year and Livni is hoping that they will be replaced by Israel Bar representatives who favor Gavison. In the last Bar election, former justice minister Yaakov Neeman, another Barak critic, came close to being elected.
In the meantime, Kremnitzer's chances of being appointed to the bench, despite Guy-Ron's tireless advocacy, seem negligible. Barak opposes him in part because of his outspoken positions on many legal and administrative matters and in part because of his general opposition to academics.
Levenbok is also opposed to Kremnitzer because he is an academic. The conservative bloc, including Naveh, Yahalom and Livni, are also likely to oppose the liberal Kremnitzer.
Another name that has been touted for the bench is that of Tel Aviv District Court Judge Devora Berliner, who is firmly supported by Yahalom.
In fact, during last year's stormy meeting that led to the appointment of former state attorney Edna Arbel to the bench, Yahalom wrested a promise from Barak and then-justice minister Yosef Lapid to appoint Berliner as an acting justice in 2005.
When the time came for Berliner to be appointed, Tel Aviv District Court President Uri Goren asked her to postpone the move by three months. By then, however, Livni had replaced Lapid at the Justice Ministry and she felt no obligation to carry out her predecessor's promise.
Other names that have been mentioned as potential replacements for retired justices Eliahu Mazza and Jacob Turkel include attorney Hanan Meltzer, and academics Miguel Deutch, Yedidia Stern and Shalom Lerner.
Gavison, Meltzer, and Lerner were candidates in the previous round of elections last April, when the committee chose Arbel, former attorney-general Elyakim Rubinstein, and judges Salim Joubran and Esther Hayut.
To The Jerusalem Post article