Due to the absence of a constitution granting the Israeli Supreme Court the power to interpret it, the court has become vulnerable to attack. When Israel was established in 1948, attempts to draft a constitution failed. The leaders of the dominant and secular Labor Party did not want to limit their own power and risk their fragile agreement with the ultra-Orthodox parties, who wanted religious law to be supreme. In the 1980s, as Israel’s Jewish population became more religious and traditional, secular Israeli law professors consulted with their American peers and Israeli Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak to draft provisions for a constitution. In 1992, the Knesset passed a Basic Law that guaranteed dignity and liberty, which Barak declared a “constitutional revolution” with new influence for the judiciary. “Nothing falls beyond the purview of judicial review,” he wrote.
The Israeli Supreme Court has…
2023-04-14 09:40:19
Article from www.nytimes.com
