Last update - 00:00 24/06/2007
Justice Min., Chief Justice fail to strike deal on Supreme Court nominees
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The justice minister and the Supreme Court president, Dorit Beinisch, have not reached the customary agreement regarding the justices to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Further talks between them over the past few days failed to yield any understanding on the matter.
After more than three years in which there were no appointments to the Supreme Court bench, the Judicial Appointments Committee will convene Sunday afternoon. The committee, headed by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, can select up to five new justices for permanent positions, but committee members have not ruled out the possibility that only one or two appointments will be made Sunday.
The leading candidates are Hanan Meltzer and Yoram Danziger, both lawyers in private practice. If additional justices are appointed, they will likely come from the ranks of the following district court judges: Judith Tsur, Jonathan Adiel or Uzi Vogelman.
Committee members continued intensive discussions among themselves at the end of the week to hammer out an agreement under which, if Beinisch does not agree to have Tsur appointed to the Supreme Court with permanent status, she could be appointed in an acting capacity, thereby enabling the permanent appointment of a sitting judge - Adiel, who has completed a temporary appointment to the Supreme Court, or Vogelman, who is in the midst of a trial period.
Sunday's meeting will follow a revised format concerning the order of discussion and voting process. Previously, any candidate who got five of the nine committee votes secured immediate appointment, but that may not be enough this time. The committee has decided to vote on all the candidates, and afterward see who received the most votes. Thus, if several candidates get six or seven votes, it is possible that candidates who have received a majority (five) votes from the committee will be out.
The last time the committee filled Supreme Court vacancies, in May 2004, the voting ended after Edna Arbel, Elyakim Rubinstein, Salim Jubran and Esther Hayut were chosen, even though there were another 10 candidates on the list.
The uncertainty regarding the upcoming appointments remains so great that it is entirely unclear how many will be made Sunday. The Supreme Court justices, led by Beinisch, prefer to postpone some appointments for several months, to add to the list other district court judges who will have completed by then a trial period at the Supreme Court. Several justices have suggested that Friedmann may no longer be justice minister by that time.
The expected appointment of Meltzer and Danziger would set a precedent, since no Supreme Court justice has ever been chosen from lawyers in private practice. Both these candidates have the backing of the Israel Bar Association's representatives on the committee, as well as Friedmann's support.