The High Court of Justice on Thursday ordered Justice Minister Yariv Levin to justify his refusal to cooperate with Supreme Court President Isaac Amit in order to make key judicial appointments, with one judge calling the arguments of his attorney “spurious.”

The judges were highly critical of Levin and the claims made by his legal representative, Yoram Sheftel, repeatedly contradicting his arguments and citing previous court rulings which seemingly refuted his claims.

The court gave Levin until March 15 to file his response to the conditional order, and said that a further hearing would be held in the first half of April.

Thursday’s hearing was held for a petition by the Zulat Institute, which argues that Levin’s reasons for failing to make the appointments are not professional, lack a factual basis, and violate his obligations as minister to serve the public.

At one stage, Sheftel sought to argue against the petitions on the basis that Zulat receives funding from foreign states, including in the EU. Despite the judges’ remonstrations that such considerations were not in any way pertinent to the proceedings, Sheftel went on to describe the EU as “hostile” to Israel, and accused Spain, Italy and France of imposing an embargo on Israel “to prevent us from being victorious in an existential war.”

A spokesperson for the EU said in response that Sheftel’s comments were “totally false, offensive, and unacceptable.”

Levin has refused to recognize Amit as Supreme Court president ever since he was appointed to the post in January 2025, after the High Court ordered him to hold a vote on electing a new court president.

The justice minister has refused to meet with Amit or make appointments that require their agreement.

The Zulat petition against Levin points out that there is currently a serious lack of judges in Israel’s various court systems, which is harming the service the courts can provide to the public.

It noted that the parole boards were as of the end of 2025 working with only half of their full complement of judges; that the number of associate judges, retired judges brought back to help with the courts’ workload was half that of 2024; that Levin is refusing to appoint new presidents for two of Israel’s district courts; and refusing to appoint registrars to the Supreme Court.

“There are no laws which enable the minister to silence the court system until he gets what he wants,” said Hagai Kalai, representing Zulat.

“Maybe he could say, ‘I want to change the IDF chief of staff before I make appointments,’ if this is allowed, then there is no limit to this kind of behavior,” Kalai said, adding that Levin’s conduct is the first time a state authority has boycotted another state authority in this manner.

Although the judges were critical of Levin’s behavior later in the hearing, they nevertheless questioned what kind of practical order they could give to the justice minister to have him comply with what Zulat insists is his obligation to the public.

“How can I get the minister to cooperate? What’s the practical result… we need to issue a concrete order,” Justice Ofer Grosskopf said.

Sheftel began his arguments by claiming that he represented not only Levin but all the voters who voted for the current government.

Grosskopf immediately challenged him, asking if he was sure that all those voters supported and were happy with the detrimental impact on the court’s service to the public that Levin’s refusal to make the judicial appointments was having.

The judge also pointed out that Levin’s refusal to recognize Amit as president was actually irrelevant, since Levin had, in previous High Court cases before Amit was appointed president, said that the justice was lawfully serving as the acting president, who has the same powers as the president, including appointment powers.

Justice Alex Stein took issue with Sheftel’s entire line of argument, citing a 1966 High Court ruling which determined that a minister is obligated to exercise his authority when there is a crisis within the administration in question.

“Formal law is what determines. Precedent from the High Court is what determines. Everything else is nonsense in the air, it has no value,” said Justice Alex Stein of Sheftel’s arguments.

And when Sheftel tried to argue that Amit’s election as Supreme Court president was not valid since Levin had not signed off on his appointment, as stipulated under the Basic Law: The President, he received further criticism from the court.

Justice Asher Kasher pointed out that a High Court ruling from 2019 determined that the minister’s signature “is merely declarative and is not a condition for the validity of the appointment.”

Said Kasher, “You’re saying that the appointment is not valid because it wasn’t published in the State Gazette. There is a ruling that says exactly opposite. You’re saying that the minister can veto every appointment just by not signing?”

When Sheftel tried again to assert the importance of the minister’s signature, Kasher admonished him saying, “You are a veteran lawyer. In this country, there is importance to court precedent.”

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