The ruling rendered by the High Court of Justice on Monday preventing the military from executing a demolition order for the home of one of the terrorists convicted in the murder of yeshiva student Dvir Sorek in Gush Etzion in August 2019, is simply incredible.
For the top judicial authority in a state that for so long has been fighting terrorism – something we can bank on to only increase given Israel's plan to apply sovereignty to large parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley – to argue that the time that has elapsed between the murder and the scheduled demolition rendered the deterring factor of such action hollow, and ignore the fact that the delay stemmed from the IDF's own due diligence in pursuing the case until the terrorist was convicted, is inconceivable.
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Adding insult to injury, the court's argued that, given the time that has passed, the terrorist's family had "reasonable grounds" to assume that their home will be spared. It never occurred to me that High Court justices are also experts on the subject of military deterrence and that they must take into consideration the expectations and assumptions of terrorists' families.
This ruling joins a long list of decrees in serving as the perfect example to why the public has lost confidence in the judiciary; rulings that are detached from reality; and that reflect the personal and political worldviews of those on the bench.
Former Supreme Court justices-turned-media pundits are proof of the growing part politics play in High Court rulings.
Since the mid-1990s, with the intention of introducing judicial activism and the constitutional revolution, liberal – dare I say, leftist – judges have been consistently selected to serve on the High Court of Justice.
Moreover, the Supreme Court's control of the Judicial Appointments Committee allowed the courts to close ranks and operate, nomination-wise, according to what can only be described as the "buddy system."
Former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked tried to introduce some diversification to the High Court and was able to get a few conservative judges elected, but Chief Justice Esther Hayut is the one to decide the makeup of the panel hearing petitions and therefore has the last say on the matter.
There is no doubt that if Monday's hearing had included two conservative judges rather than two outspoken liberals, the ruling would have been different.
