{"id":192547,"date":"2026-07-06T11:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T11:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/192547\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T11:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T11:48:13","slug":"high-court-proposes-canceling-yehuda-eliyahus-israel-land-authority-appointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/192547\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court proposes canceling Yehuda Eliyahu\u2019s Israel Land Authority appointment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The High Court of Justice on Sunday proposed a framework under which Yehuda Eliyahu\u2019s appointment as head of the Israel Land Authority would be canceled, and the selection process returned to a reconstituted search committee.<\/p>\n

Justices Yael Willner, Ofer Grosskopf, and Khaled Kabub gave the state, Eliyahu, and the petitioners 48 hours to respond to the proposal.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed framework, the government\u2019s decision to appoint Eliyahu would be rescinded. The search committee would be reconstituted with two members replaced, would reinterview Eliyahu and the two other leading candidates, and could decide whether to consider additional candidates.<\/p>\n

Hearing concerned three petitions against Eliyahu\u2019s appointment<\/p>\n

The court said that any interim appointment would have to be made under the applicable rules, but did not decide whether Eliyahu himself could serve as acting head of the authority while the renewed process is underway.<\/p>\n

The hearing concerned three petitions against Eliyahu\u2019s appointment, approved in May by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich<\/a>, and Housing Minister Haim Katz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"BezalelBezalel Smotrich. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

A central issue was Eliyahu\u2019s connection to Smotrich, one of the ministers involved in appointing him. Government representatives did not dispute that there had been a political<\/a> connection between the two, but argued that its political aspect belonged to an earlier period.<\/p>\n

The judges stressed that they were not questioning Eliyahu\u2019s qualifications in general. Rather, they questioned whether the search committee had adequately established that he had the exceptional qualifications required to justify recommending him alone despite his connection to an appointing minister.<\/p>\n

The state argued that Eliyahu had ranked first among the candidates and had a 4.2-point lead over the next-ranked finalist. The justices, however, questioned whether the scoring showed the clear and substantial gap needed to support the conclusion that Eliyahu really stood apart from the other candidates.<\/p>\n

Grosskopf noted that, depending on how certain committee members’ views were treated, other candidates could achieve similar scores. Willner said the question was not whether Eliyahu was somewhat stronger than the other finalists, but whether the gap was sufficiently clear to establish special qualifications.<\/p>\n

The court also focused on the committee\u2019s decision to ask Eliyahu alone to provide further detail on his experience after it had initially considered presenting three ranked candidates to the appointing ministers.<\/p>\n

Willner said that if the committee had not been convinced from the outset that Eliyahu had clear special qualifications, it would have been difficult to allow him alone an additional opportunity to elaborate on his credentials. Kabub similarly questioned why the other finalists had not been given the same opportunity.<\/p>\n

Judges raised concerns over the composition of the search committee<\/p>\n

The judges separately raised concerns over the composition of the search committee<\/a>, including possible conflicts involving two of its members. Willner said the appointment process had \u201cquite a few flaws,\u201d adding that some were flaws \u201cthat cannot be overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state maintained that the committee had acted properly and that Eliyahu had been found to be the strongest candidate. Eliyahu\u2019s counsel argued that any difficulty could be addressed by returning the matter to the committee rather than setting aside the appointment outright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The High Court of Justice on Sunday proposed a framework under which Yehuda Eliyahu\u2019s appointment as head of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[1412,15657,14666,37,50015],"class_list":["post-192547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-bezalel-smotrich","tag-haim-katz","tag-high-court-of-justice","tag-israel","tag-israel-land-authority"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116872878854527215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}