Retired Judge Backs Government Over Supreme Court Appointments Fight

The public and legal dispute over petitions to the Supreme Court against changing the composition of the judicial selection committee continued to escalate on Friday. Retired judge Haran Feinstein spoke on Radio Galey Israel with Eli Tzipori and gave full backing to the government’s legislative moves, while sharply attacking Supreme Court President Justice Yitzhak Amit.

Feinstein said Amit and other judges were deeply worried about what they call a “regime change” after the plan to remove two Israel Bar Association representatives from the committee that appoints judges. He rejected that claim outright, saying it was “just empty wordplay” and that there was “no regime change” at all.

He argued that in a parliamentary democracy, the structure of government procedures and appointments falls under the exclusive authority of elected officials. “It is allowed for the government, with the approval and support of the Knesset, to change the existing system,” he said. “This is absolutely not one-man rule, as they are trying to present it.”

Feinstein’s main criticism targeted the current committee model, which he said gives excessive and disproportionate power to Supreme Court judges and Bar Association representatives, harming diversity in the system. He concluded emphatically that removing the judges of the “friend brings friend” system from the committee is “simply a mitzvah,” and that removing lawyers from the body that appoints judges in Israel is “a great mitzvah.”