The High Court of Justice temporarily blocked any further steps toward appointing new leaders to the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigation Department on Sunday, leaving the appointments frozen while the court decides whether to formally halt their advancement during the election period.
The PID investigates allegations of police misconduct. Supreme Court Chief Justice Isaac Amit ordered that no new action be taken to advance the appointments created under the law restructuring PID until the court rules on requests for interim injunctions against its implementation. Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara was given until August 27 to respond to Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s position on the appointments.
The decision preserves the existing situation and prevents the appointment process from moving forward while the judges decide the narrower question of whether it should remain frozen for the duration of the case.
The appointments at issue are for the position of director of the restructured PID and for a new senior official responsible for coordinating disputes involving investigations of police officers. They form part of a broader law passed by the Knesset in June that removes PID from the State Attorney’s Office, gives it greater independent investigative and prosecutorial authority, and creates a new system for appointing its leadership.
The court’s earlier orders in the case also identified appointments to the selection committee itself as part of the process under scrutiny.
The PID director would serve a six-year term, while the new coordinating official would serve for three years, one reason Baharav-Miara argues that completing the appointments shortly before an election could bind the next government.
The law passed its second and third readings on June 11 by 43 votes to 39. Most of its provisions are not scheduled to take effect until eight months after publication, but the legislation allows the committee responsible for appointing the new PID leadership to be established earlier so preparations can begin.
Legal battle centers on timing of police appointments amid election period
That distinction has become central to the case. Baharav-Miara argues that advancing the appointments now would effectively begin implementing the restructuring before its main provisions take effect, while Israel is already in an election period. She has asked the court to stop the process until after the October 27 election, arguing that the appointments could lock in long-term changes to a sensitive law-enforcement body for the next government.
She has also challenged the independence of the five-member appointments committee, arguing that Levin has significant direct or indirect influence over several of its members. According to her filing, that creates a risk of political influence over officials responsible for investigating and prosecuting suspected crimes by police officers.
Levin rejects that argument.
Represented separately from the attorney-general because of their disagreement over the law, the justice minister has argued that the appointments are made by an independent committee rather than by the government or minister himself and should therefore not be treated as ordinary political appointments during an election period.
His position is that the committee’s members are expected to exercise independent judgment and that the approaching election does not justify stopping implementation of a law already enacted by the Knesset. Levin has also pointed to the appointment of former IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi during the 2022 election period as evidence that senior appointments are not categorically prohibited before elections.
PID has a functioning leadership, no urgency for new appointments prior to election
Baharav-Miara has argued that the comparison does not hold because the IDF could not be left without a chief of staff, while PID currently has functioning leadership and there is no comparable urgency to make the new appointments before the election.
The court had already signaled concern over the timing. Earlier this month, it ordered Levin to explain whether he intended to complete the appointments before the election and how doing so would comply with established restrictions on major appointments during an election period.
On August 18, the court indicated that it expected the existing situation not to change while the matter was under consideration. Sunday’s decision makes that restraint explicit: No new steps may now be taken to advance the relevant appointments until the judges decide the pending requests for interim relief.
The next immediate step is Baharav-Miara’s response to Levin, due Thursday. The court must then decide whether to issue an interim injunction keeping the appointments frozen more formally while the petitions proceed.
A hearing on the underlying petitions is already scheduled for December 28 before Amit, Justice Noam Sohlberg, and Justice Dafna Barak-Erez. Because that hearing falls two months after the October 27 election, the immediate question before the court is what happens to the appointment process in the meantime.
Beyond that immediate dispute is the larger question at the heart of the case: whether the restructuring of PID itself, including the new division of authority and appointment system created by the law, can stand.