The High Court of Justice on Monday ordered Justice Minister Yariv Levin to update the court by Thursday on when he intends to convene the Judicial Selection Committee to fill vacancies in the magistrates’ and district courts, leaving the petition against him alive despite his partial plan to move ahead with some lower-court appointments.
The decision, issued by Justices Ofer Grosskopf, Alex Stein, and Gila Canfy-Steinitz, followed a hearing on Levin’s continued refusal to fully convene the committee, which has not met since January 2025.
The petition was filed by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel in July 2025, asking the High Court to order Levin to set dates for the committee to meet and fill judicial vacancies across the court system.
In Monday’s decision, the justices noted Levin’s statement that he would publish, by Sunday, May 10, the list of candidates for judicial posts in the family, traffic, and juvenile courts. The court also noted his statement that the Judicial Selection Committee would then be convened to discuss those appointments as soon as possible after the mandatory 45-day publication period passes.
But the justices did not accept that this was enough to end the case.
Levin had previously told the court that once the first stage of appointments was advanced, he intended to act “without delay” to make appointments to additional judicial courts. In light of that statement, and following Monday’s hearing, the court ordered Levin to file an update by Thursday, setting out the timetable by which he intends to convene the committee to fill vacant posts in the magistrates’ and district courts.
“After the Justice Minister’s notice is received, a decision will be given regarding the continued handling of the petition,” the court said.
The decision came after Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara argued last week that Levin’s limited plan to convene the committee did not cure the harm caused by the committee’s prolonged paralysis and did not make the petition unnecessary. According to the state’s updated figures cited in that filing, 51 judicial posts are currently vacant across the system, with another 15 expected to open by the end of 2026.
Shortages delaying hearings
The Courts Administration warned that the shortages were delaying hearings, slowing urgent decisions, pushing cases “onto the shelf,” and increasing the burden on sitting judges.
Levin had argued that the petition should be dismissed after he informed committee members in April that he intended to advance a first stage of appointments, focused on the traffic, family, and juvenile courts, as well as certain magistrates’ court vacancies in the North and Haifa districts. He said candidates’ names would be published in the official gazette, as required before the committee can vote, and set June 7 as the date for the committee to convene, with additional meetings to follow in June and July.
Baharav-Miara, however, argued that Levin’s plan left major shortages untouched, particularly in the district courts, and did not reflect a system-wide assessment of the judiciary’s needs. The filing said the district courts were almost entirely absent from Levin’s plan, despite acute shortages in places such as Beersheba and Haifa.
The attorney-general’s position echoed a letter sent to Levin 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 - who accused him of “blatantly” ignoring the shortage in the district courts and warned that the numbers in his proposal appeared arbitrary.
They asked Levin to publish a broader list of candidates and then convene five committee meetings over two weeks, after the 45-day period, dedicated to filling vacancies across the courts.
Monday’s decision did not issue a final order compelling Levin to convene the committee on a specific date. But it made clear that the court was not prepared to treat his partial plan as resolving the petition, and that it wants a concrete timetable for the broader shortage in the trial courts before deciding how to proceed.