Justice Minister Yariv Levin on Monday refused to say whether he would obey the High Court of Justice if it ordered him to convene the Judicial Selection Committee and appoint new judges.

“We will wait and see,” the minister said, when asked whether he’d respect such an order. “I don’t want to notify them in advance of what I intend to do.”

Speaking at the Jerusalem Conference of the right-wing Besheva media group in Jerusalem, Levin complained that the makeup of the committee disadvantages the government, and said he would not allow “decisions to be forced upon us,” in reference to judicial appointments.

“Anyone who thinks these things will be decided by force is mistaken; anyone who thinks that, by these means, the court will continue to trample the Knesset and the government, and the problem will somehow get resolved, is mistaken,” he said.

The justice minister said that if the current coalition wins the coming election, it will “enable us to change the Supreme Court from its foundations,” adding, “I will not enable and will not agree to a situation in which they force appointments on us that do not reflect the public.”

The Supreme Court, sitting in its capacity as the High Court of Justice, issued a conditional order against Levin on Monday ordering him to justify in court his continued refusal to convene the Judicial Selection Committee, despite dozens of vacancies throughout the court system.

Levin, who has sought to weaken the court system via a sweeping judicial overhaul, last convened the committee in January 2025. He has sought to avoid doing so again until after this year’s election, when a new law will take effect that increases politicians’ influence over judicial appointments.

“There is a Basic Law in the State of Israel,” he said on Tuesday, referring to legislation that plays a quasi-constitutional role in the country, which does not have a written constitution. “The Basic Law stipulates that the justice minister is chairman of the Judicial Selection Committee.”

According to Basic Law: The Judiciary, enacted in 1984, the Judicial Selection Committee has nine members: two government ministers, two Knesset members, two representatives of Israel’s bar association, and three judges. No side has a veto.

“Until I arrived, what a convenient system it was! When we lose the elections, the left has eight votes on the committee, and the right has one. And when we win the elections, the left has six votes and the right has three. It’s an amazing system – no matter the results of the elections, they always decide,” he said, alluding to claims that judges and bar association members on the panel are invariably “left-wing.”

The government passed a law in March 2025 that removes the Bar Association representatives, replacing them with one lawyer who is directly chosen by the coalition and another who is directly chosen by the opposition; it also gives political representatives from the coalition, opposition, and judiciary veto power over lower court appointments; and it removes any influence of the three judges on the committee over appointments to the Supreme Court, while granting the coalition and opposition vetoes on it.

However, the law will only come into effect in the next Knesset, meaning after the next elections, which are currently scheduled for October.

Dozens of vacant seats, including four on Supreme Court

There are currently 44 vacant judicial positions awaiting appointment in courts across the country, with another 21 expected to become vacant by the end of this year, according to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. The figure includes four vacancies on the Supreme Court.

Another 35 new judicial positions, set to be created under the terms of the 2025 and 2026 state budgets, will also go unfilled as long as Levin continues to refuse to make appointments, she said in a court filing earlier this month.

The court on Monday ordered Levin to file his full response to the petitions by March 8, and said a hearing will be held on the matter in the second half of March.

Since his appointment as justice minister at the end of 2022 when the government took office, Levin has frequently disparaged the judiciary, but he has not disobeyed a court order outright.

In 2024, Levin refused to convene the Judicial Selection Committee to vote on a new High Court president. Petitions against that refusal resulted in the High Court ordering Levin to convene the panel and hold a vote.

Levin complied, although he absented himself from the vote, and he has refused to work with Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, who was appointed by the committee in early 2025. The justice minister has said, and repeated on Monday, that he does not “recognize” Amit’s election.

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