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The Attempt to Capture the Courts in Israel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 October 2023
Abstract
A central element in the Israeli government's agenda to overhaul the judiciary, unveiled in January 2023, is its proposal to give it and its parliamentary coalition control over the selection and promotion of judges. This article shows that this proposal is an attempt to capture the courts. To illustrate this, the article looks at the government's proposal through three different perspectives: first, the perspective of the rationale of the current system of judicial selection, against the background of court governance in Israel and its constitutional system; second, the perspective of changes in Israel's judicial selection system over the past two decades; third, the comparative perspective of trends in judicial selection in other democracies.
- Type
- Symposium Articles
- Information
- Israel Law Review , Volume 56 , Special Issue 3: The Constitutional Crisis in Israel , November 2023 , pp. 456 - 470
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Israel Democracy Institute, R.A., (2023). Published by Cambridge University Press in association with The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
References
1 Draft Bill Basic Law: The Judiciary (2023) (in Hebrew) (Minister's Bill); Draft Bill to amend Basic Law: The Judiciary (Amendment – Strengthening the Separation of Powers) (draft for discussion published by the Chair of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, 17 January 2023) (in Hebrew); Bill to amend Basic Law: The Judiciary (Amendment No 3) (Strengthening the Separation of Powers) (2023) (in Hebrew) (First Reading Bill).
2 First Reading Bill (n 1).
3 Minister's Bill (n 1).
4 See, eg, American Bar Association, ‘The Judicial Independence Monitor’, November 2022, 13–14, 31; International Association of Judicial Independence and World Peace, Mount Scopus Standards of Judicial Independence (consolidated 2022), arts 4(2), 4(4).
5 Bó, Ernesto Dal, ‘Regulatory Capture: A Review’ (2006) 22 Oxford Review of Economic Policy 203Google Scholar.
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7 van Dijk, Frans and Vos, Geoffrey, ‘A Method for Assessment of the Independence and Accountability of the Judiciary’ (2018) 9 International Journal for Court Administration 1, 4Google Scholar.
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9 First Reading Bill (n 1); Bill to amend Basic Law: The Judiciary (Amendment No 4) (Judicial Review over the Validity of a Law) (Israel) (2023) (in Hebrew).
10 Basic Law: The Judiciary, s 4(a) (in Hebrew).
11 ibid s 4(b).
12 HCJ 4956/20 The Movement for the Quality of Government in Israel v The Knesset (10 August 2020) (in Hebrew).
13 Courts Law, 1984, s 7(c) (in Hebrew).
14 Basic Law: The Judiciary, ss 7, 13; Courts Law, ibid s 17.
15 Zer-Gutman, Limor, ‘The Levels of Judges’ Behavior Scrutiny’ (2006) 9 Mishpat Umimshal [Law and Government] 15Google Scholar (in Hebrew).
16 Courts Law (n 13) s 8.
17 The rest of the justices do not submit their candidacy for the position; see Minutes of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset, 9 July 2017 (in Hebrew). Suzie Navot argues that seniority has become a constitutional convention: Suzie Navot, ‘The Seniority System as a Constitutional Convention’, ICON-S-IL Blog, 16 January 2017 (in Hebrew).
18 First Reading Bill (n 1) s 1(1).
19 ibid s 1(2).
20 Bill to Amend Basic Law: The Judiciary (Amendment No 3) (published 27 March 2023) (in Hebrew) (Second Reading Bill).
21 ibid s 1(1).
22 Second Reading Bill (n 20) s 1(3).
23 Minutes of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset, 19 March 2023 (in Hebrew); Minutes of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset, 20 March 2023 (in Hebrew).
24 Courts Ordinance (Transitional Provisions) 1948, s 1(c) (in Hebrew).
25 Salzberger, Eli, ‘Judicial Appointments and Promotions in Israel: Constitution, Law and Politics’ in Malleson, Kate and Russell, Peter (eds), Appointing Judges in the Age of Judicial Power: Critical Perspectives (University of Toronto Press 2006) 241Google Scholar.
26 Guy Lurie, ‘The Judicial Selection Committee’, Israel Democracy Institute, 1 August 2019, 19–21 (in Hebrew).
27 On the competences of European judicial councils see Anne Sanders, ‘Comparative Overview of Judicial Councils in Europe’, Council of Europe, March 2022.
28 On these various bodies see Garoupa, Nuno and Ginsburg, Tom, Judicial Reputation: A Comparative Theory (The University of Chicago Press 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kosař, David, Perils of Judicial Self-Government in Transitional Societies (Cambridge University Press 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spáč, Samuel, ‘Recruiting European Judges in the Age of Judicial Self-Government’ (2018) 19 German Law Journal 2077CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kosař, David, ‘Beyond Judicial Councils: Forms, Rationales and Impact of Judicial Self-Governance in Europe’ (2018) 19 German Law Journal 1567CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Garoupa and Ginsburg (n 28) 102–04; van Dijk and Vos (n 7).
30 For this argument on similar court-governance bodies see Garoupa and Ginsburg (n 28).
31 Compare with the indicators for judicial independence described in van Dijk and Vos (n 7) 10.
32 On the definition of ‘court governance’ or ‘judicial governance’ see, eg, Pablo Castillo-Ortiz, Judicial Governance and Democracy in Europe (Springer 2022) 2.
33 Lurie, Guy, Reichman, Amnon and Sagy, Yair, ‘Agencification and the Administration of Courts in Israel’ (2020) 14 Regulation and Governance 718, 720CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The European judicial-council model is one of the mechanisms to realise both judicial independence and accountability. For comparative court governance models see Castillo-Ortiz (n 32); Garoupa and Ginsburg (n 28).
34 Courts Law (n 13) s 25.
35 ibid ss 33, 43.
36 ibid ss 35, 45.
37 ibid s 108.
38 ibid s 82. For Israel's model of court governance, the important powers of the Minister and the important roles of the President of the Supreme Court and the Director of Courts, see Lurie, Reichman and Sagy (n 33); Sagy, Yair, Lurie, Guy and Reichman, Amnon, ‘A History of the Administration of Courts in Israel’ (2023) 40 Journal of Israeli History 355Google Scholar.
39 Courts Law (n 13) s 77a(c).
40 ibid s 7(b).
41 ibid s 9.
42 Ombudsman of the Judiciary Law, 2002, s 3(b) (in Hebrew).
43 Courts Law (n 13) s 17.
44 Basic Law: The Judiciary, s 14.
45 Courts Law (n 13) s 16a.
46 ibid s 82.
47 Lurie, Reichman and Sagy (n 33).
48 Courts Law (n 13) s 27.
49 Letter of the Freedom of Information Act Officer of the Judiciary to the Author, 12 December 2022 (in Hebrew).
50 Chronowski and others (n 8); Kovács and Scheppele (n 8).
51 Amichai Cohen, The Constitutional Revolution and Counter-Revolution (Israel Democracy Institute and Kinneret Zmora Dvir 2020) (in Hebrew).
52 Ferejohn, John A and Kramer, Larry D, ‘Independent Judges, Dependent Judiciary: Institutionalizing Judicial Restraint’ (2002) 77 New York University Law Review 962, 975–76Google Scholar.
53 Tomer Avital, ‘A Day with Simcha Rothman: “I've Met Candidates for the Supreme Court in Secret Apartments because Hayut Does Not Allow It”’, Shakuf, 13 December 2021, https://shakuf.co.il/28751 (in Hebrew).
54 Ayelet Shaked, ‘Speech on the 100 Days Plan’, YouTube, 20 March 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fQ_dCF_rN8 (in Hebrew).
55 Lurie, Guy, ‘Televising the Interviews of Candidates to the Supreme Court: Is the Move Desirable?’ (2022) 46 Tel Aviv University Law Review ForumGoogle Scholar, https://www.taulawreview.sites.tau.ac.il/post/lurie (in Hebrew).
56 Amichai Cohen and Guy Lurie, ‘Appointment of Judges to High Courts in Democratic Countries: A Comparative Study’, Israel Democracy Institute, 4 April 2023, https://en.idi.org.il/articles/48993; Kelemen, Katalin, ‘Appointment of Constitutional Judges in a Comparative Perspective – With a Proposal for a New Model for Hungary’ (2013) 54 Acta Juridica Hungaria 5Google Scholar; Comella, Víctor Ferreres, Constitutional Courts and Democratic Values: A European Perspective (Yale University Press, 2009) 98–99, 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tom Ginsburg, ‘Judicial Appointments and Judicial Independence’, US Institute for Peace, January 2009, http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/files/judicial_appointments.pdf.
57 Judiciary of Israel, ‘Annual Report of the Judiciary 2022’, 4 July 2023, updated 27 August 2023, https://www.gov.il/he/departments/news/spokemen_message040723.
58 van Zyl Smit, Jan, The Appointment, Tenure and Removal of Judges under Commonwealth Principles: A Compendium and Analysis of Best Practice (British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2015)Google Scholar; Lurie (n 26) 86.
59 Cohen and Lurie (n 56).
60 ibid.
61 European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), ‘Judicial Appointments’, Opinion No 403/2006, CDL-AD(2007)028, 22 June 2007, 8, https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pdffile=CDL-AD%282007%29028-e.
62 OECD, Constitutions in OECD Countries: A Comparative Study (OECD, 2022) 133.
63 European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, European Judicial Systems (Council of Europe, 2022) Part 1, 49.
64 Garoupa and Ginsburg (n 28).
65 Kosař (n 28).
66 Venice Commission (n 61) 7.
67 ibid 2.