Basic Laws of Israel
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The Basic Laws of Israel are a key component of Israel's unwritten constitution.
The State of Israel has no formal constitution. Though its declaration of independence promised the constitution would be completed no later than October 1, 1948, the gap between religious and secular proved too difficult to bridge, and a full, unifying document was never produced. (Then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion discouraged the convention from completing their work on the constitution, saying Israel should wait until the bulk of Jews from around the world had moved to their homeland. Some historians claim, however, that Ben Gurion simply preferred to postpone any unnecessary checks on his power.)
Many religious Jews at the time opposed the idea of their nation having a document which the government would regard as nominally "higher" in authority than religious texts such as the Torah, Tanakh, Talmud, and Shulkhan Arukh. Indeed, as late as the early 1990s, Shas leader Aryeh Deri famously declared that even if the Ten Commandments were presented to him as Israel's draft constitution, he would refuse to sign his name to them.
In 1949, the first Knesset came to what was called the Harari Decision. Rather than draft a full constitution immediately, they would postpone the work, charging the Knesset's Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee with drafting the document piecemeal. Each chapter would be called a Basic Law, and when all had been written they would be compiled into a complete constitution.
In 1998, Aharon Barak, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel declared a "constitutional revolution" and attached constitutional ascendancy to the Basic Laws of Israel. The basic laws are various pieces of legislation from the Knesset that outline the nation's political structure.
Between 1958 and 1988 the Knesset passed nine Basic Laws, all of which pertained to the institutions of state. In 1992 it passed the first two Basic Laws which related to rights; an incomplete Bill of Rights, to be sure, but the basis of the Supreme Court's recently declared powers of Judicial Review. These are the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. These were passed by votes of 32-21 and 23-0, respectively.
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[edit] Criticism
Critics of the Basic laws claim that the laws have no special constitutional bearing or standing as they were passed in committee by a fraction of the Knesset, were not subject to national debate or passed by a referendum or other democratic process which would give it widespread legitimacy. They also note that unlike other constitutional documents, a simple majority has the right to amend these "Basic Laws" as opposed a super majority or referendum as standard practice in other countries. Others claim that the superiority of basic laws stems from the fact that they are the product of the Knesset acting as the Constituent Assembly, and that from their mere definition as "basic laws" one may conclude that they are constitutionally superior.
In recent years, the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee has returned to the task of drafting a full constitution. It completed a set of proposals and presented them to the Knesset on February 13, 2006, thus completing the circle and, potentially, bringing an end to the "Harari Decision" approach and the era of the Basic Laws. The leaders of Israel's three largest parties (Prime Minister-elect Ehud Olmert from Kadima, Amir Peretz from Labor, and Benjamin Netanyahu from Likud) endorsed the work and called upon the 17th Knesset to bring a full draft of a constitution to a first reading in the plenum.
[edit] List of the Basic Laws of Israel
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| Year passed | Basic Law | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1958 | The Knesset | States legislative functions of the house of representatives of the state. |
| 1960 | The People's Lands | Ensures state lands remain national property. |
| 1964 | The President of the State | Deals with status, election, qualifications, powers, and procedures of work of the President of the State. |
| 1968 | The Government | (Replaced by the 1992 law) |
| 1975 | The State Economy | Regulates payments made by and to the State. Authority to mint currency. |
| 1976 | The Army | Upholds constitutional and legal basis for the operation of the Israel Defense Forces. Subordinates military forces to the government, deals with enlistment, and states that no extra-legal armed force outside the Israel Defense Forces may be set up or maintained. |
| 1980 | Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel | Establishes status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, secures integrity and unity of Jerusalem, deals with holy places, secures rights of members of all religions, grants special preference with regards to development. |
| 1984 | The Judiciary | Deals with authority, institutions, principle of independence, openness, appointment, qualifications, and powers of judiciary. |
| 1988 | The State Comptroller | Deals with the powers, tasks, and duties of supervisor of government bodies, ministries, institutions, authorities, angencies, persons, and bodies operating on behalf of the state. |
| 1992 | Human Dignity and Liberty | Declares basic human rights in Israel are based on the recognition of the value of man, the sanctity of his life and the fact that he is free. Defines human freedom as right to leave and enter country, privacy- including speech, writings, and notes-, intimacy, and protection from unlawful searches of one's person or propery. This law includes instruction regarding its own permanence and protection from changes by means of emergency regulations. |
| 1992 | The Government | Provides for direct election of Prime Minister at time of Knesset elections. Deals with principles of service of Prime Minister, formation and function of government, qualifications for ministers. (Replaced by the 2001 law) |
| 1992 | Freedom of Occupation | The law lays down the right of "every citizen or inhabitant to engage in any occupation, profession or trade" unless "a law which corresponds with the values of the State of Israel, and which was designed for a worthy end" determines otherwise. (Replaced by the 1994 law) |
| 1994 | Freedom of Occupation | |
| 2001 | The Government |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Cohen, Asher and Bernard Susser. Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular-Religious Impasse. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
- Jacobsohn, Gary J. Apple of Gold: Constitutionalism in Israel and the United States. Princeton University Press, 1994.
- Mazie, Steven V. Israel's Higher Law: Religion and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish State. Lexington Books, 2006.
[edit] External links
- The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel
- A Proposed Israeli Constitution, Presented to President Katzav on July 6, 2006
- Basic Laws Index Full Text
- Basic Laws Knesset Full Text (javascript problem)
- "You Say You Want a Constitution", New York Times Op-Ed piece by Professor Steven V. Mazie
