Israel Bar Association under siege

The appointment of Yitzhak Amit as permanent president of the Supreme Court on Sunday was a peak moment for the Israel Bar Association recently. Not only did the Association’s two representatives on the Judicial Selection Committee, Adv. Yonit Calmanovich and Adv. Muhamad Naamneh, vote in favor of the appointment, but in the period leading up to the vote the Association was at the forefront of the opposition to Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, who seeks to abolish the seniority method, the convention whereby the longest serving judge becomes president of the Supreme Court, and who thwarted the appointment for a year and now refuses to recognize it.

Despite the achievement, however, the Israel Bar Association (IBA), which numbers about 90,000 lawyers, faces a series of unprecedented threats to its status, and attempts to weaken it. These include at least three legislative processes, one of which became law in the Knesset recently, with the other two likely to be passed soon.

“The recent moves are a reaction to our insistence on not lending a hand to the politicization of the selection of judges, and on standing alongside the watchdogs,” says IBA head Adv. Amit Becher. “Without our stance, a president would not have been appointed to the Supreme Court, and nor would judges have been selected.”

Indeed, the IBA’s line on the “governance reform” declared by the minister of justice in January 2023 marked it as a target for the leaders of the reform, headed by Levin and MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism Party), chairperson of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

The previous IBA chairperson, Adv. Avi Himi, led the same line, but he was forced to resign at the end of January 2023 following a report by journalist Ayala Hasson of alleged sexual misconduct. His resignation paved the way for Becher’s election as chairperson of the IBA in June 2023.

Direct confrontation

Becher, who was also identified with the protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul plans, was elected by 73% of IBA members, and with a solid majority on the IBA’s National Assembly. Shortly after he was elected, the Knesset gave a first reading to a private member’s bill sponsored by MK Hanoch Milwidsky (Likud), with coalition backing, to disband the IBA in its current format and replace it with a “Lawyers Council” controlled by the ruling coalition and the minister of justice.

That bill has not been promoted further, at first because of the talks on the judicial overhaul program under the auspices of President Herzog, and then because of the outbreak of war. Nevertheless, relations between the IBA and Levin and Rothman deteriorated into direct confrontation.

Just last week, a bill to limit the IBA’s budget was passed. Under the new law, the membership fee that the IBA will be allowed to charge its members, which accounts for 70% of its NIS 90 million annual budget, will be cut immediately by 20%. This is despite fact that the IBA’s budget for 2025 has already been approved and commitments have been made on the basis of it.

From next year, the IBA will be forbidden to use its membership fees to finance its public activity, including the submission of opinions in the legislative process, and holding advanced professional training courses. These can be financed through voluntary payments, but the use of such payments will be conditional on the consent of IBA district heads, some of whom identify with the government.

The law limiting the IBA’s budget was another private member’s bill sponsored by MK Milwidsky with coalition backing. The IBA said that it was an attempt to blackmail it because of its stance against Levin’s moves to change the composition and procedures of the Judicial Selection Committee. Milwidsky said that as far as he was concerned it was a first step towards making membership of the IBA voluntary, thereby abolishing its status as the representative of all lawyers in Israel. (Under the Bar Association Law of 1961, membership of the IBA is currently mandatory for the practice of law in Israel.) The return of the “Lawyers Council” bill seems to be a matter of time.

The IBA is expected to petition the High Court of Justice shortly against the law limiting its budget. It is expected to argue that the law is intended to avenge its opposition to Levin’s plans for the Judicial Selection Committee, that it nullifies the democratic decision by Israel’s lawyers and changes the rules of the game from one minute to the next, and that it damages the IBA’s independence. The petition is also intended to delay the implementation of the law, so that, if the law is upheld, the IBA will gain time to prepare for that eventuality.

Besides the petition to the High Court of Justice, the IBA has already begun to prepare financially for the cut to its budget. The professional staff headed by IBA CEO Adv. Oshrat Taggar will revise the budget for the coming year, and Becher is expected to involve the National Assembly in the process. Staff layoffs are also on the agenda, although Becher stresses that this will be done in consultation with the employees.

Meanwhile, the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chaired by Rothman is expected to start promoting the plan launched by Levin and Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar, and formulated in consultation with entrepreneur and former government minister Izhar Shay and General (res.) Dedy Simhi. Under the plan, the IBA will no longer nominate representatives to the Judicial Selection Committee, a strategic goal that Levin and Rothman have been working towards for a long time. Instead, the coalition and the opposition in the Knesset will each choose a lawyer to serve on the committee.

If the plan matures into legislation, the IBA is expected to petition the High Court of Justice against that law too. “The story here is not just the exclusion of the Association from the committee,” Becher stresses. “The problem is the politicization of the entire process of selecting judges.”

As though that were not enough, the IBA came under fire after fewer than one third of the candidates passed the examinations to qualify as lawyers held in December, the lowest pass rate ever. Although the IBA is not responsible for the examination, which is run by an independent committee actually appointed by the Ministry of Justice, Levin exploited the opportunity to attack.

According to Levin, the IBA acted to bring about “wholesale failure of the examinees.” The IBA described the accusation as “false and untenable”, but it seems that it continues to pay the price of being identified in the public’s mind with the examination.

Backing from senior lawyers

In the face of the threats that beset it, the IBA can draw encouragement from the backing that it has received from senior members of the profession. “In the past two years, the Association and its head have done everything possible, in the legal and public arenas, to save this organization,” says Adv. Doni Toledano, chairperson of the executive committee at the firm of Erdinast, Ben Nathan, Toledano & Co. “I personally am not a member of any of the Association’s institutions, but I am convinced that the considerations here are the good of the public, and not those of a guild.”

Adv. Michael (Micky) Barnea, a founding partner at Barnea Jaffa Lande, says, “The Association has to find ways of recruiting the public, which, together with the vast majority of lawyers, voted with its feet against the judicial overhaul, to its cause, in order to ensure that its voice is heard and taken into account in the legislative processes and the appointment of judges.”

Dr. Limor Zer-Gutman, founder and head of the Weiner Center for Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility at the College of Management Academic Studies, calls on Becher to set up a team to manage “the most severe crisis in the Association’s history.” “The head of the Association has the largest majority I can remember in the National Assembly, and he must enlist the aid of these elected representatives.”

Becher says that the IBA is currently promoting reform that will give new tools to its ethics committees. “On the one hand, there has to be substantial enforcement in clear-cut cases, such as breach of privilege or criminal offenses, and at the same time the committees need to be given flexible tools such as fines and warnings before a process is instigated, so that a formal accusation will not be the sole tool.”

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on January 29, 2025.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.