The main subject of the deep contention between the Coalition and the Opposition is the appointment of judges. According to the current method, the representatives of the judges in the committee for appointing judges has the right to veto the choice of all new judges.
Majority vote of the committee has no place here in instating new judges and the inescapable result is that the chosen judges have to toe the line of the presiding judges themselves. No judge could be voted in without the certification of the president of the High Court, meaning that the roster of judges continued to maintain its carbon copy status with the identical views of the judicial body.
The High Court had its balance and calibration through the necessity of appointing an Arab judge as well as a 'pet' dati, preferably one sporting a knitted kipah and residing in the settlements, so as to give the High Court a semblance of representing the people, while not tampering with the absolute automatic majority of a leftist agenda favored by such as Meretz and the Left.
Small wonder that regarding decisions of values, we find a consensus promoting the automatic majority leaning to liberality, anti-Jewish and, often as not, anti-Israel, versus the minority view of the religious judge, the rightist one and the settler, who, 'for some reason or other,' held opposite views than the ruling leftist majority.
The argument that the judges work according to pure judicial motives and that their personal world view has no impact whatsoever on the judicial decisions, is, of course, a gross and farfetched lie. If under question there was some financial disagreement or something criminal, then perhaps the judges ruled according the accepted guidelines. But regarding value subjects that are not subject to explicit laws, there is no doubt that their personal outlooks affect their decisions. A religious judge favors a religious subject while a secular judge rules in the opposite direction. A rightist judge leans towards the rightist camp where a leftist judge would have a contrary vote. And this is how things proceeded in practice for many years. Even when the public elects a rightist government, the High Court remains leftist.
These are hard facts, not theories, which can be examined from a long series of judicial decisions. The Coalition insists on creating a balanced setup where the judges and the High Court president will have denied to them the power of veto on the appointment of judges with agendas differing from the ruling line. Those judges who will be appointed will be graduates from the academia, bearing recognized and official diplomas, with tenure and experience, whose only 'handicap' is their rightist leaning.
What is the link between their ability to be chosen and dictatorship? How will the balance in the election of judges impair democracy? How can such a devious and illogical lie enter the heads of those many who are sure that a change in the method of selecting judges enabling another rightist judge or two to enter the High Court destroy Israeli democracy?
As someone once said: the power of propaganda always leaves a mark. The more often it is repeated, the more it penetrates the head and engineers its own identity there. The Big Lie!
