Education Minister Naftali Bennett tweeted the following after four new Supreme Court Judges were chosen yesterday:
“Kudos to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked who has achieved the unbelievable and led a real revolution within the Judicial Selection Committee with the appointment of some wonderful conservative judges. Bravo, Ayelet!”
There are few things most Israelis agree on. The Supreme Court being too favorable to leftist and international viewpoints is one of them. If the appointments yesterday of four non activist judges was a revolution, then the way Minister Shaked broke the negotiating power of the Left leaning Supreme Court was something that will forever change Israeli politics.
Shaked did this by threatening to back a bill in the Knesset which would have stripped the Supreme Court of the power to be part of the selection committee that decides who should be a Supreme Court Judge (that’s right, in Israel the Supreme Court gets to help decide its own members). Facing legislative extinction the old guard and leftist elite folded on the immediate selections and in order to keep a bit of power. Shaked and the ruling government shelved the nuclear option in favor of changing the court from within.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said that “today we have made history. This evening the Judicial Selection Committee headed by me appointed four judges to the Supreme Court, after we have already appointed 150 judges since the beginning of my term in office. The appointment of the judges this evening will enable expression of the human and judicial mosaic which is so necessary for us as a society and was so lacking until today in the highest judicial forum. The rudder of our judicial flagship has changed its course tonight.”
Minister Shaked has now shown the way forward in battling the judicial tyranny of the Left. Take it on directly and never back down.