Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced today (Thursday) a compromise agreement on a new judicial reform proposal that deals with the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee and the enactment of Basic Laws. The proposal was formulated by Brig. Gen. (Res) Dedi Simchi and former Minister Yizhar Shai, both of whom lost children in combat during the war.
According to the proposed outline, which Sa'ar and Levin called a “a historic amendment,” the committee will include three Supreme Court justices, two lawyers (one from the coalition and one from the opposition), two MKs (one from the coalition and one from the opposition), and two ministers.
Instead of representatives of the Israel Bar Association, the committee will be composed of two lawyers, one chosen by the coalition and the other chosen by the opposition. The lawyers will have at least ten years of experience in litigation in the courts.
Appointments will only be made by inter-party agreement: a majority of five of the committee members will be required for selection in all instances. For the lower courts, the majority will have to include at least one coalition member, one opposition member, and one judge.
Appointing a judge to the Supreme Court will require the support of at least one coalition member and one opposition member. This means that judges will not be elected by a simple coalition majority, and at the same time, there will be no election of judges by a majority that does not include any representative from the coalition.
In order to prevent paralysis in the absence of agreements on appointments to the Supreme Court, in the event that there are two vacant positions and a year has passed without an appointment, the following arrangement will be implemented: The coalition/opposition representatives will each present three candidates - from which the other side (together with the representatives of the judges) will choose one.
It will be enshrined in law that the Knesset representatives on the committee will be one from the coalition and one from the opposition. This is in contrast to the current situation in which cross-camp membership is not regulated and is not guaranteed. The amendment will be prospective and will enter into force starting from the next Knesset.
In addition, a Basic Law will be passed differentiating the passage of Basic Laws from normal laws. This will prevent the passage of quasi-constituional legislation in spur-of--the-moment moves. There will be no judicial review of Basic Laws, except for basic laws that violate equality in elections, which can be invalidated by a three-quarters majority of the court's judges.
If passed, these reforms would only come into effect in the next Knesset after the next elections.