Is Gideon Sa'ar Israel's most impactful minister?
| Published date | 07 October 2021 |
| Author | YONAH JEREMY BOB |
| Publication title | Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel) |
Though he moved aside to pave the way for Naftali Bennett to take the prime minister's chair, it is Sa'ar who may have the greatest actual impact of all of the ministers, by reshaping the courts and the powers of the attorney-general for decades to come.
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Despite the uproar about Meretz Party officials meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Sa'ar is moving, sometimes publicly and sometimes under the radar, to shift the balance of power on the Supreme Court from the liberal camp to the conservative camp.
If one of his influential predecessors, Ayelet Shaked, failed to get even close to splitting the attorney-general's office into a separate chief legal adviser and chief prosecutor, Sa'ar is closer to succeeding on this dream of the ideological Right than anyone to date.
Sa'ar was mum about exactly who he would push for as head of the powerful Judicial Selection Committee from the list of 24 candidates to fill the four slots currently open on the Supreme Court.
After making appointments to those four vacancies due to be filled by the end of November and to two more openings in 2023, Sa'ar and the committee will have replaced more than one-third of the court. The court has already been changed from one overwhelmingly filled by liberals to that of one with a razor-thin edge of moderate liberals over conservatives.
But if he gets even a two to two split of conservative appointees to liberal appointees, this could slide the court decisively into the conservative column given that three liberal or moderate-liberal justices are retiring and only one moderate conservative is.
Projecting the strength that comes from behind the formidable desk of the justice minister, Sa'ar said, "It is a high-quality list and diverse on all sides. I don't judge people just on if they are conservative or liberal. There are lots of other ways to measure. Some have more civil law backgrounds and some experience with government administrative committees. Even within criminal law, there are those who are more defense-minded versus those who are more prosecution-minded."
"There are two goals: excellence and diversity. The High Court has gotten more heterogeneous over the last 15 years than before... this is good... I helped contribute to this through the 2007 law," which changed the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee to require a seven out of nine vote consensus for each candidate to be selected, he said.
Further, reports indicate there will be a push to appoint conservatives like District Court Judge Ram Winograd and former state bankruptcy chief David Hahn.
Regarding commenting on a controversy that erupted on Monday threatening District Court Judge Khaled Kabub's almost-guaranteed seat to fill the traditional Israeli-Arab seat on the court with Justice George Kara retiring, Sa'ar was careful.
Sa'ar said he did not want to discuss the specific allegations regarding Kabub. The controversy surrounds whether Kabub knew some of the problematic activities of some Israeli-Arab activists he had met who had worked with his father.
But he also would not promise that Kabub's seat was 100% solid. Further, he said that it was even possible for the committee to add new names to the 24-person list. This remark leaves open the implication that there would need to be an Israeli-Arab candidate to replace Kara, so if need be, a new Israeli-Arab candidate could be added. Sa'ar clarified, though, that this was not his preference, since the law would require a delay to republish the updated list.
Meanwhile, he wishes to nominate the four new justices by the end of November, and adding new candidates could cause a...
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