High Court names nine-justice panel to hear petitions on law halting arrest of haredi draft dodgers

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit announced the expanded panel on Thursday.

The composition of the panel is particularly significant because it includes all five justices who issued the court’s detailed and sharply critical rulings in November 2025 and April 2026, requiring the government to enforce military-service obligations against haredi draft evaders: Sohlberg, Barak-Erez, Mintz, Willner, and Grosskopf.

The challenge will therefore place before those justices a temporary law suspending the very criminal and administrative enforcement proceedings that they previously ordered the state to strengthen.

Amit’s decision came one day after Grosskopf issued a temporary order suspending the law’s entry into force until further notice and a conditional order requiring the Knesset and government to explain why it should not be struck down.

Grosskopf cited the High Court’s longstanding rulings on the enlistment of yeshiva students, the implications of freezing enforcement proceedings “with regard to only certain sections of the population,” and the “weighty arguments” raised against the law’s validity.

The dispute comes after a succession of increasingly forceful High Court judgments on inequality in military service and the government’s failure to enforce the existing draft law.

In June 2024, a nine-justice panel unanimously ruled that, following the expiration of the statutory framework allowing deferments for yeshiva students, the government had no legal authority to refrain from drafting them or to continue funding institutions for students required to serve.

The court returned to the issue in November 2025, ordering the government to formulate an effective enforcement policy without delay.

That ruling said the policy must include meaningful criminal proceedings and broader economic and civil measures and found that the state’s conduct had come close to a complete abandonment of enforcement against haredi draft evaders.

The five-justice panel said the rate of criminal proceedings against haredi evaders must ultimately be no lower than the rate applied to other population groups and described the existing situation as selective enforcement that undermined both equality and the rule of law.

After the government failed to implement that ruling, the same panel issued another decision in April ordering specific ministries and public bodies to consider revoking benefits, including subsidized housing, daycare assistance, public-transportation discounts, and municipal tax reductions.

The justices said that “no real steps” had been taken to implement their previous judgment and stressed that the state could not continue avoiding enforcement while citing the prospect of future legislation.

The Knesset nevertheless passed the temporary enforcement freeze on Tuesday by 58 votes to 54. The law was intended to remain in force until November 30 and would suspend enforcement against yeshiva students meeting its conditions.

The four petitions were filed by Israel Hofsheet, opposition leader Yair Lapid, and seven other Yesh Atid lawmakers; Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, MK Oded Forer, and the party; and the Movement for Quality Government in Israel.