In the wake of Supreme Court president Esther Hayut’s unprecedented decision to deliberate petitions against the Reasonabless Law with a 15-judge panel, Attorney Avi Segal, on behalf of the Lavi Association, submitted an urgent petition to the Supreme Court on Thursday demanding that Hayut be disqualified from heading the panel due to her public comments slamming the law.

Hayut excoriated the proposed law in a public speech in January and even slammed what she perceives as the motives for the law, calling it “an unbridled attack on the legal system, a plan to crush to crush the legal system.”

The petition claims, among other things, “that out of fear of bias and harm to the justice system, Hayut must disqualify herself from participating in any discussion related to the issue in order not to harm the legitimacy of any judicial decision that is made.”

“Any other judge who would have expressed firm and public positions on this or that issue would have been disqualified from sitting in the court on the same issue. It is unfathomable to accept double standards and such obvious conflicts of interest just because the person in question is the president of the Supreme Court.”

Adv. Avi Segal said: “We are sorry that the honorable President of the Supreme Court did not see fit to even respond to two early inquiries addressed to her. We are confident that the Supreme Court panel that will deliberate the petition will immediately issue a conditional order directing the Honorable President to provide a reason why she should not disqualify herself from sitting at the head of the panel that will hear the petitions in connection with the Reasonableness Law. And as long as the president chooses not to disqualify herself, then we believe that the court itself will issue an absolute order instructing her to do so.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)