Asher Grunis to be the Next President of the Supreme Court

Justice Grunis

The Knesset is on its way to passing a law- The Grunis Law- that will change the status quo at the Supreme Court of Israel. The current practice is that when the President of the Court retires at age 70, the next most senior Justice (based on age) becomes the new President, although I don't think that is codified in the law. (See here.) The Courts Law- 1984 provides that the President of the Supreme Court shall be appointed in accordance with Section 4(a) of the Basic Law: The Judiciary which states in turn that "A judge shall be appointed by the President of the State upon election by a Judges' Election Committee." Section 8(c) of the Courts Law states that "a judge may not be appointed to the position of President or Vice President of the Court if he/she cannot serve in this position for at least three years until mandatory retirement under section 13(a)(1)" which mandates that a judge retire at age 70.

The current President, Dorit Beinish, is set to retire in a few months. Justice Grunis, who would replace her, would only serve as President for 2 years and 10 months before turning 70, seemingly disqualifying him from the position. The Knesset's new law would waive the 3 year requirement and apparently not replace with any time requirement at all. According to the JPost the new law would apparently have a two year minimum service requirement, but I didn't see that on the Knesset website. What I read seemed to say that the nomination of a suitable President will be left to the discretion of the Committee.

While the sponsor of the bill Yaakov Katz said that his motivation is to ensure that the country doesn't lose out on a competent President like Justice Grunis because he is 41 days too old, it seems to be an open secret that the cancellation of the law is a political maneuver by Knesset members who approve of Justice Grunis' opposition to judicial activism and reticence to annul laws passed by the Knesset.

I actually worked for Justice Grunis at the Supreme Court last year when I was a foreign law clerk. See my previous post here. I liked him a lot and hope he does become the next President of the Court.

Relatedly, another law is under consideration that will change the makeup of the Election Committee which currently consists of 9 members. Section 4(b) of the Basic Law: The Judiciary currently states that "The Committee shall consist of nine members, namely, the President of the Supreme Court, two other judges of the Supreme Court elected by the body of judges thereof, the Minister of Justice and another Minister designated by the Government, two members of the Knesset elected by the Knesset and two representatives of the Bar Association elected by the National Council of the Chamber. The Minister of Justice shall be the chairman of the Committee." The new law will change the method for appointing the members of the Bar Association. The Chairman of the Bar Association will be one member and another member from the political opposition will be the other. See here.

I admit I don't understand how that will work. It assumes that the Chairman of the Bar Association belongs to a political party. What if he doesn't? Is that possible? Does it seem strange to you that the members of the Bar Association are openly political?