Supreme Court Orders Government To Cede Seat On Judge-Selection Committee To Hamas

Only fair to put Hamas on the committee that selects judges to rule on cases affecting Israel's conduct of war.

Jerusalem, May 25 - Israel's highest judicial body continued its arrogation of powers today by instructing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to replace his administration's representative on the panel that votes in new justices to that judicial body with one from the Islamist group that controls most of the Gaza Strip, because the group needs representation in choosing candidates to serve on the body that now de facto governs both Israel and Gaza.

The Supreme Court ordered the change today in response to a petition from The Movement for Quality Governance, which pointed out that, given that the Palestinians living under the dictatorial Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip do not have functional representation even in their own government, and that, given the paternalistic, racism-of-low-expectations approach of the ideology governing the Court for the last thirty years, it is only fair to put Hamas on the committee that selects judges for the Supreme Court, which, unlike lower courts, rules on cases affecting Israel's conduct of war and its administration of areas under military control.

Analysts also see the move as a swipe at the Netanyahu government, which attempted in 2023 to overhaul the judicial system to limit the purview of the Supreme Court, which, in the view of many conservatives, had gradually arrogated for itself powers that formally belong to the legislature and the executive. Critics of the Netanyahu reform package saw a threat to the independence of the judiciary. Now the government will have once less voice and vote on the selection committee, which the judicial establishment already controls in effect: the majority of its slots are allotted to protégées of the sitting justices in the Israel Bar Association, or to the justices themselves.

Practical hurdles remain: logistical, legal, procedural, and security issues all stand in the way of implementing the ruling. MQG representatives have already asked the Court for clarification on the requirement that a Hamas delegate sit on the committee, considering those hurdles, and proposed that, at least as a temporary measure, the Bar Association or MQG itself provide the missing delegate, lest the government try to maintain its hold on the committee seat until a suitable Hamas member can be brought in.

Other complications include how the Hamas representative will be selected, given the lack of democratic norms under Hamas rule and in Hamas's own ranks. On that point, the MQG proposal leaves it to the Court's discretion, but suggests selecting from among Hamas personnel already in Israeli custody, if only for convenience.

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