MK Tally Gotliv launched a sharp attack in the Knesset plenum on Tuesday against Supreme Court Justice Isaac Amit, accusing him of using the word “politicians” as an insult. She said that when Amit looks down on politicians, he is looking down on elected officials and on the public itself.
Gotliv argued that judges should not be trying to exclude politicians from the committee that appoints judges, because elected representatives are an independent and important branch of government. She said, “The committee for selecting judges is not a committee for cloning judges,” and added that there is no reason in Israel for judges to appoint themselves.
During her speech, she also cited past judicial scandals, including the Orנשטיין case and his communications with the then-head of the Israel Bar Association. She said the public had seen “an obsequious display by judges in Israel” toward the Bar Association, and asked, “Who should be removed from the committee?”
Gotliv’s call to remove judges from the appointments committee comes amid a long-running, tense relationship between her and the judiciary. She has repeatedly been removed from courtrooms during hearings, and she said this experience prompted her latest attack on what she described as the power centers of the legal system. She said she trusts elected officials from across the political spectrum to choose judges, and called Amit’s attitude toward politicians an “insult” and an affront to democracy.
