Tomorrow, the true nature of the Judicial Selection Committee will be determined. While the opposition and coalition squabble over the question of Karine Elharrar's appointment, the lawyers will go out to vote and determine who will be the chamber's two representatives on the judicial selection committee.
In the past, elections to the Bar Association were marked by great indifference on the part of lawyers. The voter turnout of lawyers hovered around 20-30 percent on previous occasions. The election was seen as the election of a workers' committee that was supposed to look after their welfare. The lawyers saw this as a nuisance in their daily routine.
But the last elections in 2019 proved to us that the significance is far-reaching. What has happened in the State of Israel in recent months has shown that the power of the Bureau in setting the legal agenda of the State of Israel and on the question of its Jewish character and national identity is critical. Of all the provisions of the judicial reform, the question of the Judicial Selection Committee is the real cause for protest and will determine whether the Supreme Court will continue to appoint judges with identical positions, or whether it will open its doors to others who are not activists like it and who are more conservative than it. This is the essence of the reform and this is the main goal of its proposers.
The Bar Association appoints two representatives from the nine members of the committee to the committee. To date, representatives of the Chamber have almost permanently aligned themselves with the position of the three Supreme Court justices. They were automatically counted as part of the bloc of Supreme Court justices, which was always more activist and liberal.
This is what caused the religious and national parties to demand the reform. It is impossible, they argued, that in the Knesset elections we will get 64 seats, but the Supreme Court, especially sitting as the High Court of Justice, will rule on issues of beliefs and opinions according to the worldview of its members, while the national, traditional and religious camp will find opposite it the parties of the center and the left, which actually lost the elections, run the country through the judges. This is the core of the reform and this is the pretext for the demonstrations of opponents of the reform.
The upcoming elections for the Bar Association are being held in the shadow of these events. The left wants to preserve the protests and demonstrations despite MK Elharrar's election to the committee. This stems from the simple reason that they want to come this coming Tuesday, to the bar elections, under the artillery of the struggle, and cause lawyers from the left to flock to the polls.
Only on the right - apathy. The National Chamber lists seek the support of lawyers to signal that the judiciary is not a single ideological bloc that aligns with activist and liberal – and in some cases anti-nationalist – views. Despite the dramatic significance of the elections, the Knesset members of the national camp stare at them as if it does not concern them.
And another important point: everyone is discussing the question of who will be the chairman of the bureau. A very important question. The unconscious mistake is that those who determine the two representatives of the Chamber for the selection of judges are members of the Council, and therefore if the Chairman of the Chamber is elected without the Council of the Chamber having a majority for the national camp, we have achieved nothing. The representatives of the Chamber will belong to the left-wing camp, the world will follow its custom, and the Supreme Court justices will be elected as last year.
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