At the appellate level, the three-judge panel split revealingly along gender lines.
One state panel split 2 to 2, but a fifth judge, added to break the tie, ruled against Mr. Tankleff.
There has been fierce public criticism of the deal, and the court's five-judge panel split 3 to 2 in its opinion.
On Wednesday, the advisory panel split 8 to 8 on whether the diet drug Meridia, sold by Abbott Laboratories, should be removed from the market.
The three-judge panel split on predictable party lines, with the two Republican-nominated judges finding against Obama's executive action and the lone Democratic nominee on the panel dissenting.
In late February, the High Court upheld the agreement, with the court's five-judge panel split 3 to 2. Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch, in the minority, argued that the deal was seriously flawed.
She was the only Welsh author on the shortlist of six novels - but her win came only after the hardest of struggles on a panel split between three authors.
Representative Jerry Lewis, 79, a former chairman of the Appropriations Committee, has been mulling which district he will run in after California's redistricting panel split up his Inland Empire district east of Los Angeles.
The judges on the panel – split almost evenly between those from countries that have recognised Kosovo and those that have not – have a history of careful and conservative judgments.
Mr. Lewis had been mulling whether to run in either of the districts created this year when the state's independent redistricting panel split his 41st Congressional District into the new Eighth and 31st Districts.
