High Court to Minister of Justice: Publish within a week the names of candidates for judgeship in the District Court

High Court to Minister of Justice: The list of candidates for judgeship must be published within 7 days

Against the backdrop of the ongoing crisis in the judicial system, the High Court has ordered the Minister of Justice to act immediately to appoint judges to the district courts. The decision comes after a period of about a year and a half in which the Judicial Selection Committee was not convened due to a lack of consensus, a situation that has led to the accumulation of many vacant positions and an extreme workload in the system.

According to reports by Avishai Grinzaig, who extensively covers the judicial and political systems, the urgency of the appointments also stems from the planned proximity to the election date, which could impose legal restrictions on the possibility of making appointments. "Under these circumstances, there is no choice but to determine that the Minister of Justice must publish the list of candidates for judgeship in the district courts in the official gazette without further delay," reads the decision quoted by Grinzaig and by Netael Bandel and colleagues.

The court has set a clear ultimatum for the Minister of Justice, prioritizing the district courts in Beersheba and Haifa, where the need for judges is defined as "particularly pronounced." According to the court's decision, the minister must publish the list in the official gazette by next Monday, June 8, 2026.

Legal sources anticipate that by the end of 2026, additional positions will become vacant, which intensifies the fear of the system collapsing under the existing workload. As of now, the Minister of Justice's office has not provided a response to the decision.