Despite the coordination between the two parties throughout the reform negotiations, Israel Hayom learned that last night, during the discussions at the President's House, a gap was discovered between Yesh Atid's demands and those of the state camp.
Yesh Atid demanded that they are not willing to reach an agreement until an opposition representative is elected on the Judicial Selection Committee, and Justice Minister Levin convenes the committee by the end of June.
The talks at the President's House, Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO
The state camp does not share the latest demand to oblige Levin to convene the committee, arguing that it is impossible to force a justice minister to do so. President Herzog's negotiating team was also surprised by this demand and made it clear that it was impossible to interfere in the Justice Minister's work.
Yesh Atid insists on convening the committee as a condition for agreements and even threatens to blow up the talks if the committee is not convened for a long time, out of concern that Levin will not convene it and thus paralyze the system. According to party sources, "They are not willing to be a fig leaf for Netanyahu and an opponent, there are 80 positions of judges to appoint, there is nothing to choose representatives for the committee if it convenes to elect judges." Lapid also discussed this demand with President Herzog. It should be noted that even requiring Levin to convene the committee will not necessarily result in the appointment of judges, since Levin will be able to claim that in any case he does not succeed in reaching a majority.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Justice Minister Levin, Photo: Jonathan Zindel/Flash90
The strategy of the state camp from the beginning was to drag out the time and push the coalition to reach a deadline in which they would be obliged to appoint Knesset representatives to the committee for selecting judges in its existing format, so that after that the chances of changing it would be low and fraught with legal difficulties. The state camp concentrates on the fact that the achievement of appointing an opposition representative to the committee is really expensive and does not introduce additional demands, which they call "irrelevant."
Meanwhile, the talks at the president's residence held yesterday did not bear fruit. The elections for the Judicial Selection Committee on June 14 are the next deciding point of the talks. The coalition is demanding that an agreement be reached on the Attorney General's Law or the grounds of reasonableness by the time the committee elections are held, while the opposition refuses any agreement until it is seen that Agan will elect an opposition representative to the committee. If the coalition appoints only two MKs to the committee, the opposition says they will blow up the talks. The test, as stated: in two weeks in the elections for the committee in the Knesset plenum.
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