The High Court of Justice issued an important ruling on Monday, according to which the next Civil Service Commissioner (CSC) must be appointed in a competitive procedure, and may not be selected individually by the prime minister.
The ruling marked a significant development on an issue that pitted the government against the attorney-general, and is connected, according to critics, to its attempt to politicize public service.
The CSC is the official supervisor of the state’s tens of thousands of workers in the public sector. Its authorities include chairing a large number of appointment and firing committees for various high-level positions; approving government requests to recruit employees without a tender; implementing government policy regarding the public sector, and more.
The issue of the appointment of the new CSC has been especially sensitive in recent months, due to the government’s attempts to fire two high-level officials – Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, who has announced recently that he will step down of his own accord on June 15.
While the CSC is involved in appointing many high-ranking public sector jobs, the method of appointing the CSC itself is not laid out in law. The tenure of the previous CSC, Prof. Daniel Hershkovitz, ended in December after a three-month extension. The government in 2018 formed an ad-hoc committee to appoint Hershkovitz, but requested that the attorney-general propose a permanent appointment method to be implemented beginning with the next commissioner.
Protesters gather in Jerusalem near the High Court of Justice. March 19, 2025. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
The AG issued such a proposal ahead of the end of Hershkovitz’s tenure. The proposal was for an independent appointment committee to vet candidates and then recommend one to the government. The reasoning behind the proposal was that the commissioner is considered a central gatekeeper of the professionalism and apolitical character of public service, and therefore, his or her appointment should be made independently.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the attorney general’s proposal. He instead had the government approve a proposal for him to personally elect the new CSC, on the condition that his or her integrity passed a statutory vetting committee. This did not include vetting for professional criteria. Facing criticism, Netanyahu later revised his proposal and offered instead that his candidate would be vetted by an ad-hoc committee that would examine both the candidate’s integrity and his or her professional qualifications. The attorney-general accepted the latter proposal, while stating that the preferred appointment method was still one that included a competitive component.
While these procedures were ongoing, Netanyahu appointed an interim CSC, Roi Kachlon, whom Deputy Attorney-General Gil Limon deemed highly unqualified. This appointment was challenged in court as well. The court permitted him to serve for three months in total, and his tenure ended in April.
Ruling strikes down Netanyahu's second proposal, requires gov't set new method
Monday’s court ruling struck down Netanyahu’s second proposal as well, and required that the government set a permanent and competitive method before appointing the next CSC. This was the position of Chief Justice Yizhak Amit and Judge Dafna-Barak-Erez. Deputy Chief Justice Noam Solberg wrote a dissenting opinion.
Amit and Barak-Erez ruled that "the process chosen by the government for appointing the next commissioner does not include sufficient guarantees for maintaining the independent, state-oriented, and non-political nature of the role or for selecting the most professionally suitable candidate,” according to a summary of the ruling published by the court’s spokesperson.
“Furthermore, the majority opinion determined that there is no longer room for the practice in which the political echelon decides and modifies the appointment mechanism at its discretion, based on considerations that are not transparent to the public," the summary read.
Amit emphasized in the majority opinion that the fact that the government is authorized to appoint the commissioner without a tender “does not mean that it has unlimited discretion or is exempt from the rules of administrative law," according to the summary.
Amit added that the appointment method chosen by the government “involves decisive involvement of the political echelon – the Prime Minister selects a single candidate of his choice, and all members of the appointment committee are chosen by the political echelon,” according to the summary. “The selection of a single candidate by the Prime Minister, without a competitive process, will generally not result in the best candidate," Amit added.
In his dissenting opinion, Solberg argued that "it is very difficult to determine that there is a legal obligation to appoint the commissioner through a competitive process, as the law explicitly exempts it from the requirement of a competitive tender,” according to the summary.
According to Solberg, “Given that the legislator chose to remove the tender—that is, the competitive appointment process—'through the door,' there is no room to reintroduce it 'through the window' via judicial review of administrative discretion,” the summary read.
A number of Ministers and MKs from the coalition criticized the ruling. Education Minister Yoav Kisch and others called for the immediate legislation of a new law to codify the appointment method according to the government’s wishes, and thus overcome the High Court ruling.
