Today, the Judicial Appointments Committee is expected to approve the four candidates for the Supreme Court.
Khaled Kaboub, who is expected to serve as the first Muslim Supreme Court judge, and Ruth Ronen, who is close to the New Israel Fund, are candidates for the activist camp.
From the Conservatives' camp: Adv. Yechiel Kasher, a representative of the Bar Association who is identified as a conservative, and Gila Kanfei Steinitz, the wife of MK Yuval Steinitz.
These candidates are expected to replace the Supreme Court justices who have already retired - Menachem Mazuz and Hanan Meltzer, and Justices Neil Handel, who will retire in April, and George Kara, who will retire in May.
First Muslim at the top
The activist camp, which includes Supreme Court justices, has been trying for several years to appoint Kabov and Ronen to the Supreme Court.
These are relatively familiar characters;
Judge Kabov serves as Vice President of the Tel Aviv-Yafo District Court, is a lecturer at Bar Ilan University and the Ono Academic College, and previously served as a judge at the Netanya Magistrate's Court.
Judge Ronen is considered an outstanding judge and serves as a judge in the Economic Department of the Tel Aviv District Court.
Ronen graduated with honors from the Hebrew University and previously served as a judge in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court.
Judge Kabov, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
In 2011, the then Ombudsman for Judges, retired Judge Eliezer Goldberg, found a complaint against her to be justified after receiving a lawsuit from Gisha, which forwarded materials to the Goldstone Report Commission of Inquiry. Gisha is supported by the New Israel Fund and the lawsuit She received the association while her husband was a member of its management and even donated NIS 350,000 to it.
Judge Kanfei Steinitz, vice president of the Jerusalem District Court, is a candidate for the conservative camp, and is expected to be the first Mizrahi woman in the Supreme Court.
However, other than being "wife of", there is no real evidence of her being particularly conservative.
Steinitz chose to cite in her sample rulings a ruling from September 2018, in which she obliged Kol Barama radio to put women on air, an activist ruling by all accounts.
In November 2008, she was a member of the panel that accepted the state's appeal and convicted three right-wing activists among the founders of the "National House" movement, who initiated roadblocks as part of opposition to the disengagement plan, offenses of rebellion and publicity.
Activists were acquitted in the Magistrates' Court for protection of justice, but the state appealed.
Judge Steinitz,
Adv. Yechiel Kasher is a candidate for the Bar Association, who insisted that one of the candidates approved be a lawyer from the private sector. His associates describe him as having a conservative worldview and being identified for years with right-wing parties. The likelihood, he said, is that it needs to be used infrequently and not interfere with government decisions.
Adv. Yechiel Kosher, Photo: Tomer Jacobson
Kasher graduated with honors from Tel Aviv University and is currently a partner and head of the litigation department at Tadmor Levy & Co.
In 2013, he was ranked as the best litigation lawyer in the country by the American guide Best Lawyers.
The two candidates from the conservative camp won the support of Justice Minister Gideon Saar.
Agreements on the candidates did not come in a vacuum.
Justice Minister Saar tried to find candidates on whom the judges could agree to form a majority.
The law allows for the election of Supreme Court justices by a majority of 7 out of 9 committee members.
About a month ago, the committee was rejected due to disagreements between its members regarding appointments to the Supreme Court, which led to the creation of the "deal" between the Minister of Justice and the Supreme Court.
Minister Gideon Saar, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Shaked's veto
During Shaked's tenure as Minister of Justice, she vetoed Ronen's candidacy and it is unclear how she will vote now.
However, Justice Minister Saar considers her an excellent judge and does not consider her an unworthy candidate, despite the worldviews from which she comes.
Judge Ronen,
MK Simcha Rotman is expected to oppose a "deal" formed with the Supreme Court justices, but the Minister of Justice, identified as a right-wing conservative, is in fact a member of the Supreme Court representatives and thus allowed the necessary majority, even if Interior Minister Shaked decides to oppose the move.
In the negotiations conducted by Minister Saar, he succeeded in removing the candidacy of Yigal Marzel, the director of the courts and a protégé of Aharon Barak, who is also considered a red sheet among the right, but in return all the candidates that the conservative right wanted to admit were rejected.
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.
They further note that Saar's compromise made it possible to reach an agreement that did not detract from the quality of the candidates.
Opponents of this deal point out that these are "fur", "right-wing" candidates at best, who will be much less motivated to bring the values from the camp they come from compared to Kabov and Ronen.
"An attack that considers itself right-wing has surrendered and joined the activist current of Supreme Court justices, thus enabling the necessary majority - even if Shaked chooses to oppose," they said.
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