Yariv Levin is a senior Israeli lawmaker in the Likud Party and currently serves as the country's justice minister and deputy prime minister. He previously served as Knesset speaker, aliyah and integration minister, tourism minister, and public security minister.
A longtime member of the Likud, Levin's influence in Israeli politics skyrocketed in 2023 when he announced a wide-ranging overhaul of the country's judicial system. Created and spearheaded by both himself and MK Simcha Rothman, judicial reform was highly controversial and sparked massive nationwide protests for months on end, interrupted only by the October 7 massacre and Israel's subsequent war against Hamas.
Levin is now expected to try to push through one of the key planks of his judicial reform -- changes in how the court is selected.
The new proposal also includes a mechanism to prevent a stalemate in high court appointments.
"This is a sad day for democracy and a sad day for our judicial system," the justice minister said in a statement.
The Judicial Selection Committee convenes to appoint Israel's new chief justice.
Earlier on Friday, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara penned a letter to Levin, calling on him to convene the committee.
The new bill is based on a joint proposal by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar and is expected to pass into law by the end of February.
The AG wrote that it was not clear why Levin waited until the days before the deadline to air the allegations, some of which arose already in 2023.
Israel has been without a chief justice since October 2023, when former chief justice Esther Hayut’s tenure ended.
The initial bill was approved for its second and third reading in March 2023, but was frozen after mass protests broke out in the wake of former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s warning.
Sa'ar and Levin pitched the proposal as "evolutionary and not revolutionary," but according to Mandelblit, the proposal was indeed revolutionary.