Background
The respondent, Hana Peri Ben Yaker, owns an apartment in a shared residential building in the Tel Aviv area. In May 2025 she commenced proceedings before the Land Registration Supervisor for Tel Aviv-Jaffa (Supervisor A. Arfi Morai), claiming that the appellants — Yael Hana Mandel and Tamar Mandel, who own the apartment directly above hers — were responsible for dampness and water damage affecting her unit and must carry out necessary repairs. At a hearing on November 24, 2025, the parties appeared to agree to the appointment of a joint expert to examine the source of the dampness and determine what work was needed. The Supervisor issued a decision reflecting that agreement. When the appellants subsequently sought to correct the hearing protocol and the expert’s terms of appointment — arguing their consent had been conditional — the Supervisor rejected the request, finding an explicit, unconditional agreement had been given and noting the appellants’ refusal to allow the respondent’s own expert access to their apartment.
The first appellant, Tamar Mandel, is a licensed attorney. On December 7, 2025, she filed a recusal application against the Supervisor, disclosing that both had worked as judicial clerks (legal assistants) at the Tel Aviv District Court — the appellant from 2008 to 2012 and the Supervisor from 2011 onward. The appellant alleged that the Supervisor had displayed marked hostility toward her during that period and that this animosity was now manifesting in the proceedings. On December 17, 2025, the Supervisor dismissed the first recusal application, finding it untimely and stating that she had no recollection of the appellant, given that her service as a clerk was more than fifteen years earlier, and that even a superficial acquaintance of that kind would not, in any event, give rise to a genuine concern of bias. The Supervisor simultaneously refused to freeze the expert appointment, citing active water damage in the respondent’s apartment.
On December 18, 2025, the appellants filed a second recusal application, contending that the language of the Supervisor’s first recusal ruling — which referred to the respondent’s dampness as an established fact rather than a mere allegation — demonstrated that the Supervisor had pre-judged the central factual dispute in the case. The Supervisor rejected the second application the same day, finding no changed circumstances and no error requiring correction. Separately, on February 1, 2026, the Tel Aviv District Court (עש”א 61553-12-25) accepted a related appeal by the appellants and annulled the November 24 and December 7 decisions, holding that the appellants’ consent to the expert appointment had indeed been conditional. The appellants then appealed both recusal dismissals to the Supreme Court.
The Court’s Holding
President Amit dismissed the appeal in its entirety. On the threshold question of timeliness, the Court held that the first recusal application was properly rejected for delay. Under Regulation 173(a) of the Civil Procedure Regulations 5779-2018, a recusal application must be filed immediately upon discovering the ground for disqualification and “before any other argument.” The appellant conceded that she identified the Supervisor as a former colleague before the November 24 hearing, yet she argued the case at that hearing and filed a further motion before raising any recusal claim. Such tactical sequencing — using the recusal application only after a ruling went against her — is impermissible. As the Court has said, “a recusal claim is not a ‘secret weapon’ to be held in reserve for as long as proceedings fail to develop to a party’s satisfaction” (EA 5254/23 Ard v. Azulai, ¶10).
On the merits, the Court found that the prior workplace acquaintance — at most a superficial one, more than fifteen years old — did not establish a real concern of bias within the meaning of section 77A(a) of the Courts Law [Consolidated Version] 5744-1984. The Supervisor’s account of that relationship was internally consistent; the Court saw no contradiction between her statement that she did not remember the appellant and her acknowledgment that a superficial acquaintance had existed. The Court further held that the appellants’ real grievance was with the Supervisor’s substantive and procedural rulings, not with any genuine appearance of partiality. It is settled law that a tribunal’s decisions can give rise to a real concern of bias only in the most exceptional circumstances, and recusal proceedings are not the proper forum for contesting rulings on the merits or on procedure — that is what appeals are for. The Court cited the “Sixth Commandment” of Israeli judicial-recusal law (עפ”ס 41432-12-25, ¶11(f)): the fact that an appellate court subsequently overturns a lower-court decision does not, without more, establish that the lower-court adjudicator was biased.
As to the Supervisor’s passing reference in the first recusal ruling to dampness “in the respondent’s apartment,” the Court rejected the argument that this constituted a prejudgment of the facts. Reading that remark in context, the Court found it was an incidental observation made in the course of explaining why the proceedings should continue without delay — not a factual finding on the merits. Moreover, the same formulation had already appeared in the December 7 decision, yet the appellants had not raised it in their first recusal application, suggesting the argument was also untimely. The Court noted, finally, that the second recusal application had itself proposed an alternative: that the Supervisor either recuse herself or direct the respondent to bring her own expert — an odd formulation if the appellants genuinely believed disqualification was legally required. No order as to costs was made.
Key Takeaways
- A recusal application must be filed immediately upon discovering the disqualifying ground and before making any other argument in the proceeding; filing only after an adverse ruling renders the application untimely under Regulation 173(a) of the 2018 Civil Procedure Regulations.
- A remote, superficial acquaintance between a judicial officer and a party — here, having worked in the same courthouse more than fifteen years earlier — does not, standing alone, create a real concern of bias sufficient to require disqualification.
- Challenges to a tribunal’s procedural or substantive rulings belong in appeal proceedings, not in recusal proceedings; only in wholly exceptional cases can a tribunal’s own decisions establish an appearance of bias.
- An appellate court’s subsequent reversal of lower-court decisions does not retroactively establish that the lower-court adjudicator was biased or should be disqualified from the remitted proceedings.
- Incidental or contextual remarks in a recusal ruling — distinguishable from formal factual findings — do not ordinarily evidence pre-judgment of the merits.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the Supreme Court’s consistent approach to judicial and quasi-judicial recusal in Israel: disqualification is a last resort, not a tactical device. The ruling clarifies that the standard for recusal — a “real concern” of bias rather than a subjective suspicion — applies equally to Land Registration Supervisors exercising judicial functions, and that their procedural decisions carry the same presumption of impartiality as those of judges. The requirement to raise recusal immediately, before taking any further step in the proceedings, is applied strictly, foreclosing attempts to hold a recusal claim in reserve and deploy it only when the proceedings turn unfavorable.
The case also illustrates the boundary between appeal and recusal. Even where an appellate court has set aside a lower-court decision — as the District Court did here with respect to the expert-appointment orders — that outcome does not convert the original tribunal into one that lacked impartiality. Practitioners appearing before quasi-judicial bodies such as Land Registration Supervisors should note both the immediacy requirement and the high evidentiary threshold they must meet to establish genuine bias, as opposed to legitimate disagreement with how a case is being managed.