Miriam Naor and Ayelet Shaked
Miriam Naor and Ayelet Shakedצילום: Yonatan Sindel/FLASH 90

Journalist Dan Margalit bitterly attacked Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked on disagreements over the choice of the next Supreme Court president and Shaked's oppo‎sition to deciding the appointment on the basis of seniority.

"Ayelet Shaked does not let go, and it is essential to put her in check," Margalit wrote in his Twitter account.

Margalit added, "She wants to trample the seniority system in the election of the Supreme Court President and has joined the destroyers of Israel's democratic image in the world."

Minister Naftali Bennett quickly answered Margalit: "Ayelet Shaked does not trample on anything, she returns the balance to the system after decades of an excessive constitutional revolution that has turned everything judicable. Seniority holds no sanctity. It needs to be discussed," added Bennett, referring to the much-criticized changes former Chief Justice Aharon Barak made to the judicial system.

Last week, Supreme Court President Miriam Naor sent a sharp letter to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.

Naor implicitly threatened in her letter, overstepping her purview, that she would file a petition to the Supreme Court against Minister Shaked if she delayed the meeting of the Judicial Selection Committee, which is supposed to announce the election of Esther Hayut as the Supreme Court President.

According to Naor, "The minister must use her authority to set an agenda only on a real and practical basis."Naor added: "It seems that the only reason to postpone the meeting of the committee is that we have not been able to reach an agreement regarding the identity of the two Supreme Court justices who will be elected in place of Justices Danziger and Shaham."

To read Naor's letter in Hebrew click here.

Justice Minister Shaked sent a response to Naor in which she wrote: "Your letter seeks to elect the President of the Supreme Court more than a hundred days before your retirement, and therefore without any necessity at this time, and this before a substantive hearing has been held on the matter."

"The Committee for the Selection of Judges will convene on a date consistent with the opinion of all the members of the Judicial Appointments Committee, on July 18, 2017," Shaked announced, detailing the agenda of the meeting: "A general-public debate on the question of how to elect a president for the Supreme Court and the seniority apparatus."

According to Shaked, "Only after that discussion will a date be set for the meeting of the committee in which the identity of the president of the Supreme Court and the deputy will be determined."