In Israel, petitions have been filed both with the High Court of Justice and with Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann objecting to the procedures used last week to appoint 15 new judges to the country's rabbinic courts. (See prior posting.) The petitions demand that the election results be cancelled and new judges appointed. Yesterday's Jerusalem Post reports on the judicial challenge and Haaretz reports on the filing with the Justice Ministry.
The petitions were filed by The Tzohar organization of modern Orthodox rabbis and Emunah, the National Religious Women's Organization. They claim that the new ultra-Orthodox appointees will be insensitive to women's issues. The High Court petition alleges that the appointments were the result of a political deal between two ultra-Orthodox parties. It says that election committee members were not given the protocols of the subcommittees that interviewed and rated the candidates and were not told to which courts the nominees would be assigned. When the head of the committee began to read the names of the candidates and give his opinion of each, apparently committee members interrupted him and said there was no need for that, even though some new committee members were unfamiliar with the candidates.
