Israel Blog #3: Politics and Justice: Visit to Knesset, Supreme Court stop, and Dinner with Aharon and Elika Barak.

We did a bit of the political thing in Israel.  Instead of making this blog a teachable moment, I'll focus on the things that I thought were fascinating at the Knesset, Supreme Court, and in our discussion with Aharon Barak.

I thought the art at the Knesset building was fascinating, particularly the tapestries in the state hall.  There are pictures and explanations for the artwork here.  I was really interested in the fact that the legislative body had evidence of the religious heritage of the Jewish people.  Part of this is the fact that the religious heritage of the Jewish people is intertwined with the political history of the Jews, but nonetheless, this was new to me in the modern American legal culture.

I asked Justice Barak about his thoughts on the religious inclusion in public policy discussion after seeing how religious discussion has an apparent impact in Israel.  He narrowed the focus to separation of church and state principles.  He pointed out to us that the United States and France are the only two countries that have strong separation of church and state principles built into their government system.  For Israel, Justice Barak thought that religious discussion would make sense when the law in question dealt with religious issues.  For purely secular laws, Justice Barak reasoned that the best approach was to use secular discussion to determine the law.

On another note, Mrs. Justice Barak also made us an awesome mousse cake.

Justice Joubran spoke to us at the Israel Supreme Court.  He explained how their system works, and it was interesting on a few fronts:  1)  Justices are not bound to prior decisions of the court.  Cases are decided on a case-by-case basis, and a judge will go through their own reasoning to come to a decision, even if it is contrary to prior case law.  No stare decisis.  2)  Israel does not have a Constitution.  I was surprised to hear this.  Israel has their Declaration of Independence from 1948, and 14 Basic Laws, but no actual Constitution in place.  3)  The entire population of Israel has a right to be heard by the Supreme Court, so cases can be filed directly with the Supreme Court.  This is totally unlike our 2000 petitions-whittled-down-to-80-cases-taken U.S. Supreme Court.  4)  Supreme Court decisions can be made with panels as small as 3 Justices.  Cases in the U.S. Supreme Court are heard before the entirety of the Court.

Courtroom at Israel Supreme Court

Gleening the minds of two Supreme Court Justices was very informative.  I'm trying to look through their eyes at the law that was passed yesterday in Israel that denies public funding to institutions that deny the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.  Based upon what both Justices said, I have no idea how the Supreme Court in Israel will rule on this law.  (If there is any law that I have confidence will be brought before the Supreme Court, this is it).  Based upon what Justice Barak said, and the existence of a right to human dignity in the basic laws, I'd say there is a very strong argument that the law is unconstitutional.  Confident predictions cannot be made when cases are determined entirely on a case by case basis by differing justices.  The Israeli legal system was an interesting compare and contrast with the U.S. system.