Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s refusal to convene the Judicial Selection Committee (JSC) remains so grave that the High Court of Justice must intervene, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara argued to the court on Monday, rejecting Levin’s claim that his latest move had made the petition against him unnecessary.
The filing, submitted on behalf of the legal advisory system and the Courts Administration, comes ahead of a hearing scheduled for Sunday on Levin’s refusal to convene the committee, which has not met since January 2025.
According to the state’s updated figures, 51 judicial posts are currently vacant across the court system, with another 15 expected to open by the end of 2026, bringing the total to 66.
The shortage comes in a system already under severe strain, with the Courts Administration warning that the vacancies are delaying hearings, slowing urgent decisions, pushing cases “onto the shelf,” and deepening the burden on sitting judges.
The petition was filed in July 2025 by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, which asked the High Court to order Levin to set dates for the JSC to meet and fill judicial vacancies throughout the system.
After a February hearing, the court issued a conditional order requiring Levin to explain why he would not exercise his authority under the Courts Law and convene the committee for votes on judicial appointments needed to fill vacant posts across the judiciary.
But rather than file a full response, Levin submitted an update earlier this month asking that the petition be dismissed. Two days earlier, on April 17, he had informed committee members that he did intend to convene the committee – but only for a limited first stage of appointments.
Levin said he planned to move ahead with appointments for the traffic, family, and juvenile courts, as well as to fill certain vacant posts in magistrates’ courts in the North and Haifa districts. He also said he intended to publish the candidates’ names in the government’s official gazette, as required before appointments can be voted on.
Because candidates’ names must be published 45 days before the committee votes on them, Levin asked committee members to submit their candidates by May 3. He set June 7 as the date for the committee to convene, with additional meetings to follow in June and July.
Levin argued that this meant the petition had become unnecessary.
The attorney-general said the opposite.
In Monday’s filing, Baharav-Miara argued that Levin’s announcement did not answer the conditional order and did not cure the ongoing harm caused by the committee’s paralysis. Rather, she said, it sharpened the need for the court to intervene.
According to the filing, Levin’s proposed first stage ignores major shortages in large parts of the judiciary, especially the district courts, and gives no explanation for why he is refusing to move now on appointments to all trial-level courts.
The filing stressed that the district courts were almost entirely absent from Levin’s plan, despite acute shortages in several districts. The Courts Administration said the Beersheba District Court currently has five vacant judicial posts, and another is expected to open by the end of the year, amounting to roughly 21% of the court’s judicial positions.
In the Haifa District Court, three posts are currently vacant, and three more are expected to open by the end of 2026, amounting to roughly 15% of the court’s judicial positions.
The attorney-general also argued that Levin’s focus on traffic, family, and juvenile courts was not based on a proper factual foundation or a system-wide assessment of the courts’ needs.
While additional judges in those courts would be welcome, the filing said, judicial staffing must be viewed across the full system, including district courts, civil courts, criminal detention courts, and other areas under severe pressure.
“The harm to the judicial system and to litigants continues,” the filing said, arguing that Levin was moving to fill posts in an arbitrary way, disconnected from the judiciary’s actual needs.
Supreme Court Justices accuse Levin of ignoring shortage of judges
The attorney-general's position closely tracks a sharply worded letter sent to Levin on April 19 by the three Supreme Court justices who sit on the Judicial Selection Committee: Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, Deputy President Noam Sohlberg, and Justice Dafna Barak-Erez.
The three told Levin that his letter “blatantly” ignored the acute shortage of judges in the district courts, especially in Haifa and Beersheba, and said the numbers in his proposal appeared “entirely arbitrary.” They warned that the delay in appointments to all courts, not only those Levin chose to mention, was harming service to the public.
They also pointed to the impact of the recent emergency period brought on by the war with Iran, saying that many hearings had been postponed because of the security situation, adding further pressure to an already overloaded system. “The situation is unbearable,” they wrote.
The justices asked Levin to immediately publish a broader list of candidates in the gazette and then convene five committee meetings over two weeks after the required 45-day publication period, dedicated solely to filling judicial vacancies across the courts.
Monday’s filing also criticized Levin’s continued refusal to begin appointments to the Supreme Court. Levin has said he will not advance Supreme Court appointments as long as what he describes as a veto on his preferred candidates remains in place. The attorney-general argued that this position is inconsistent with the law and with the High Court’s earlier ruling on judicial appointments, which required committee members to act with proper diligence to advance the selection of new Supreme Court justices.
The dispute is part of the broader confrontation between Levin and the judiciary over the JSC, which has been one of the central fronts of the government’s judicial overhaul. Under the current system, lower-court appointments require a regular majority on the nine-member committee, while Supreme Court appointments require a majority of seven out of nine members.
Critics, including Baharav-Miara, have argued that Levin has effectively created for himself a veto power that the law does not give him by refusing to convene the committee unless appointments are made by what he calls a broad consensus.
Levin has rejected that claim, arguing that judicial appointments should not be forced on him and that other committee members have blocked candidates he supports. He has also refused to recognize Amit’s appointment as Supreme Court president, after the committee selected Amit in January 2025 following a separate High Court ruling that required Levin to convene the panel.
For the attorney-general, however, Levin’s latest proposal does not end the case. It leaves the core problem intact: dozens of judicial posts remain empty, the committee remains largely frozen, and the public continues to bear the cost.
The state, therefore, asked the High Court to reject Levin’s request to dismiss the petition and to continue hearing the case.