After roughly a year and a half of backlog, political tensions, and legal pressure, the Judicial Selection Committee on Sunday selected 68 people for posts across Israel’s court system.
The appointments marked the committee’s first broad round of selections since January 2025, after Justice Minister Yariv Levin had declined for months to convene it amid disputes over judicial appointments and the future makeup of the committee itself.
Fifty-three candidates were selected for permanent judicial posts in magistrates, family, juvenile, traffic, and district courts. A further 15 judges were selected as registrars and acting district-court judges in Beersheba, Haifa, Jerusalem, and Nof Hagalil-Nazareth.
The move begins to address a shortage that the High Court of Justice said had caused serious harm to court services and the public, but it does not fully resolve the permanent district-court vacancy crisis that led to the court’s intervention.
On May 31, a unanimous three-justice High Court panel ordered Levin to convene the Judicial Selection Committee and take the steps needed to fill district-court vacancies, prioritizing the Beersheba and Haifa District Courts.
The court found that the shortage had “severely impacted” the judiciary’s ability to enforce the law and provide efficient public service.
Figures submitted to the court before Sunday’s meeting showed that 51 judicial posts were vacant across the system, with another 15 expected to open by the end of 2026. The High Court noted that the 2025-2026 budget also provided for 35 additional judicial positions, while promotions within the system create further vacancies below, leaving the committee with an estimated need to fill about 150 positions overall.
Substantial first round, but not a complete solution
Sunday’s selections, therefore, represent a substantial first round, though not a complete solution.
The committee selected six judges for district-court positions: Efrat Or Elias, Shelly Aisenberg, Amit Yariv, Menachem Mizrahi, Nir Mishory Lev-Tov, and Michal Kaplan Rokman.
Five magistrates’ court presidents were also selected for eventual promotion to district courts after completing their current terms. Supreme Court President Isaac Amit described the move as a long-sought-after effort to advance the senior management tier of the magistrates’ courts.
“After a long period of preparation and anticipation, I am pleased to announce that the committee convened today and selected dozens of judges for judicial posts across the country,” Amit said.
He said that magistrates' court presidents carry a significant daily share of the judiciary’s operational burden and had demonstrated the professional and managerial abilities required for district-court service.
One of the more closely watched selections was Mizrahi, president of the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, who has presided over a number of remand hearings in the Qatargate and classified-documents leak investigations involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides.
Mizrahi became a public figure during those proceedings after issuing decisions critical of police conduct and of aspects of the investigations. Several of his rulings on restrictive conditions imposed on senior Netanyahu adviser Yonatan Urich were later reversed on appeal by the Central District Court.
Investigative restrictions and remand conditions
Those proceedings concerned investigative restrictions and remand conditions rather than findings on the underlying criminal allegations.
Beyond the district-court selections, the committee chose seven candidates for magistrates’ courts in the North and 10 for magistrates’ courts in the Haifa District.
It also selected 12 candidates for family courts in Haifa, Central, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Jerusalem, and the South; six for juvenile courts; and 12 for traffic courts across the country.
The 15 acting district-court placements include six judges for Beersheba, seven for Haifa, one for Jerusalem, and one for Nof Hagalil-Nazareth.
While the acting appointments may provide immediate help to overloaded district courts, they are not permanent appointments. The High Court’s May ruling focused particularly on the need to move forward with permanent selections for Beersheba and Haifa, where shortages had become especially acute.
The committee did not announce permanent appointments to those specific courts on Sunday. Candidates for permanent posts in Beersheba and Haifa were published in the state gazette earlier this month, beginning the mandatory public-notice period before the committee can vote on them.
The procedure is designed to be longer than a single committee session. Candidates for permanent judicial office undergo screening and review, while candidates’ names must generally be published in the official gazette for 45 days before the committee votes. Members of the public may submit objections during that period.
The committee’s vote is the substantive selection stage. Judges are then formally appointed by the president of Israel and begin their terms after taking an oath of office.
Under the current law, the nine-member committee is chaired by Levin. It includes Amit, Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg, Justice Dafna Barak-Erez, Settlement and National Missions Minister Orit Strock, MKs Karine Elharrar and Yitzhak Kroizer, and Israel Bar Association representatives Yonit Kalmanovich and Muhamad Na’amneh.
Lower-court appointments are generally made by a simple majority of participating committee members. Supreme Court appointments require the support of seven of the committee’s nine members.
The current structure remains in force despite the Knesset’s March 2025 amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary.
That amendment, which is only set to take effect once the next Knesset is elected, would retain a nine-member committee but replace the two Israel Bar Association representatives with public representatives selected by the coalition and opposition.
Supporters of the change have argued that it gives elected officials and the public a more direct role in judicial appointments. Opponents argue that it would expose judges and prospective judges to political pressure and weaken the professional balance built into the current committee.
At a full High Court hearing last week on petitions challenging the amendment, several justices raised concerns that a more overtly political appointment system could affect the incentives of judges seeking promotion. No ruling has yet been issued.
Levin wished the selected judges success “in fulfilling their mission.”
Sunday’s meeting ended a prolonged freeze and filled dozens of positions across the lower courts, but the permanent district-court vacancies that drove the High Court case, the remaining shortage across the judiciary, and the broader fight over who should control judicial appointments are all still unresolved.