Courts and Diversity: Normative Justifications and Their Empirical Implications

The study distinguishes between three normative approaches that view diversity in the judiciary as a desirable ideal, outlines their expected empirical implications for judicial decision-making, and tests the implications against data from the Israeli Supreme Court. The “reflecting” approach suggests that diversifying the courts is important mainly as a means of strengthening the public’s confidence in them and does not impact judicial decisions. The “representing” approach asserts that judges serve as representatives of their social sectors. Thus, they tend to rule in favor of their group’s interest only in cases that are relevant to their in-group. The “social background theory” is based on the premise that people of different backgrounds develop distinct worldviews. Hence, social attributes are expected to influence judicial decisions across a wide range of socio-legal issues. The empirical investigation centers on the role of gender and religiosity in judging on five carefully selected socio-legal issues: petitions against the Great Rabbinical Court’s rulings, constitutional disputes in all legal procedures, social welfare cases, and criminal appeals in sex offenses and in drug offenses. The results lend support to social background theory with regard to gender and are consistent with the representing approach with respect to religiosity. I further discuss the limitations and policy implications of the findings.

Solving One-Side Polarization: Supreme Court Polarization and Politicization in Israel and the U.S.

The Israeli Supreme Court has become increasingly polarized between liberal and conservative judges. This phenomenon is relatively new to the Israeli Supreme Court and follows the much older and more well-known example of the U.S. Supreme Court. This article surveys both U.S. and Israeli court polarization and shows the history, reasons, and special features of polarization of both courts, including the important differences between them. It also adds a distinction to existing literature on court polarization—the distinction between court polarization and politicization, and especially the distinction between “regular” polarization and “one-side” polarization. Regular court polarization happens when the court is divided roughly equally between the two main political contenders (usually between right and left). One-side polarization happens when there is a clear advantage to one side of the political map in the make-up of the court. The current U.S. Supreme Court, with six conservative justices and only three liberal justices, is an example of one-side court polarization that is tilted to the right. The current Israeli Supreme Court (as of the writing of these lines) is an example for one-side court polarization tilted to the left; there are 10 liberal judges and only five conservative judges on the court. The article’s main argument is that one-side court polarization presents a particularly vexing problem for the legitimacy of the court, even more so than “regular” polarization. The article concludes with a survey of possible solutions to help Israel retract itself from one-side court polarization.

Diversity, Dissent and Representation: Lessons From The First Minority Judge in the Israeli Supreme Court

This paper seeks to enrich existing empirical research on substantive representation in the judicial system by exploring a case study of the Honorable Justice (retired) Salim Joubran, the first ethnic-minority judge appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel. By employing a dual methodology of qualitative discourse analysis and dissenting quantitative studies, the study investigates when, why and how he dissented in controversial cases, which are defined as cases that resulted in non-unanimous votes. The study shows that a quantitative study on dissenting opinions of a minority judge alone did not provide comprehensive conclusions. The complementary qualitative discourse analysis shows that in cases that challenged state actions that impacted his social group, Joubran employed distinct strategies and reasoning that are akin to feminist judgments approach. Hence, the study adds to existing research on judicial diversity indicating that women and ethnic minorities judges not only share common challenges but might also operate similar reasoning strategies. In light of these insights, the study calls for employing the combined qualitative and quantitative methodology on examining judgments focusing on dissenting opinions of women and ethnic minority judges as it offers a complex understanding of substantive representation and provides answers regarding the socio-legal effects of judgments group affiliation on.

Judicial Agency and Legal Means in Judicialization of Politics

Law’s autonomy from politics has been in decline. Theories have been formulated to provide explanations for the development. However, these debates have overlooked the role of judicial agency in the construction of the Court’s own fate. Judicial agency has a lot to determine when courts embark on their mission of embracing political circumstances surrounding them. The present paper argues that insistence on neutral principles by Legal Process School can be guiding for courts to devise judicial techniques that enable warranted appearance of neutrality. Two cases decided by the Israeli Supreme Court will be discussed to elaborate on the argument defended in the paper. In these cases, the Israeli Supreme Court constructs its institutional security by engaging in a principled line of reasoning across its evolving jurisprudence on the same political issue, namely by first exhausting more solid legal arguments and imposing conclusive constitutional resolutions once these less controversial decisions are implemented.

Introduction

This chapter describes the background to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, and changes that have taken place in these territories since then. It provides a profile of the Israeli Supreme Court—its composition, function, and record; and discusses factors that affect its role in reviewing petitions from Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories, including the Court’s public image, its position in the Israeli political system, and its general record in matters relating to judicial review of government action. The chapter concludes by reviewing changes in the actual regime in the Occupied Territories that question its characterisation as a regime of belligerent occupation.

The Unintended Negative Effect of Positive Complementarity

Ending impunity cannot be achieved by international criminal tribunals alone. Therefore, it is important that states will take a significant part in these efforts. The principle of complementarity is aimed to incentivize states to conduct domestic criminal proceedings against alleged perpetrators of international crimes. This article calls for a broader examination of the way in which the principle of complementarity incentivizes domestic actors. It argues that beyond the potential positive effect of complementarity on domestic criminal law, the shadow of the International Criminal Court creates a negative incentive for domestic courts to intervene in constitutional and administrative cases that examine general conduct of hostilities cases. The paper demonstrates this negative effect by examining a shift in the attitude of the Israeli Supreme Court in conduct of hostilities cases. In addition, the paper discusses the ways in which domestic courts attempt to regain their reputation following their increased deference in conduct of hostilities cases.

The Strategic Common Law Court of Aharon Barak and its Aftermath: On Judicially-Led Constitutional Revolutions and Democratic Backsliding

There is renewed scholarly interest in studying the dynamics of constitutional revolutions and the explanations for the rise of constitutional courts around the world. At the same time, there is growing discussion of democratic backsliding and concern that democracies are exhibiting extremism, weakening of opposition forces and constitutional courts, and violations of civil and political rights that are pertinent to vibrant democracies. Scholars try to study both phenomena and understand the relationship between them. Israel is an important case study for both agendas. This Article analyzes the jurisprudence of Aharon Barak, one of the greatest jurists of our time with a worldwide reputation for revolutionizing both Israeli constitutional law and comparative constitutional law. It explains the tactics and strategy used by Barak to revolutionize Israeli constitutional law on issues of reasonableness, proportionality, standing, justiciability, constitutional review, equality, and supra-constitutional law. It reveals how each revolution paved the way for the next. It offers explanations for the effectiveness of these judicially-led revolutions as well as possible bases for their legitimation. Barak was a common law judge and ultimately treated parliamentary sovereignty as a doctrine arising from common law and constrained by common law, though he never quite put it in these terms. The Article concludes with explanations for the political backlash experienced by the current Israeli Supreme Court that some have characterized as democratic backsliding. It argues that the Court contributes to the development of law as part of a dialog and interaction between the different branches of government. As the Court operates within these dynamics, it must understand and take into account the institutional, political, and social environments in which it operates to preserve legitimacy and achieve efficacy. Barak was a strategic player that laid foundations for an expansive judicial power, but his Court was very prudent in utilizing that power. His successors may have contributed unintentionally to the backlash against the Court by following Barak’s substantive jurisprudence, but not necessarily his prudent tactics and strategy.

Accounting for Those in the Hands of the Belligerent: Security Detainees, the Missing and the Dead in the Israeli–Hamas Conflict

Five Israeli nationals, two soldiers and three civilians, have gone missing since the 2014 Israeli–Hamas violent escalation, and they are currently held incommunicado by Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip. In response, the Israeli Government revoked some entitlements from Hamas security detainees held in Israel. It also withholds bodies of Palestinian militants, killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis, refusing to hand them over to the families. The bodies are to be buried in Israel until Israeli nationals, or their remains, are repatriated by Hamas. In several instances where the authorities returned the remains to the next of kin, they imposed various restrictions on the funeral arrangements. The Israeli Supreme Court recently examined the Government’s practices, with some judges finding them unlawful. These developments call for the analysis of the matter under the law of armed conflict (LOAC), taking into account that other States involved in armed conflict encounter similar challenges. This article accordingly discusses some of the legal obligations arising when persons, or their remains, are believed to be in the hands of the belligerent party. It also considers the legality of certain measures taken to promote their repatriation.

The diminishing status of international law in the decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court concerning the Occupied Territories

This article examines the attitude of the Supreme Court of Israel towards international law in the past decade, focusing on cases concerning the Occupied Territories. It compares the decisions of the past decade to those of the preceding decade, which were characterized as developing a “jurisprudence inspired by international law.” The article argues that the status of international law in decisions that regard the Occupied Territories has, overall, declined. While the international law of occupation still operates, officially, as the governing law in the Occupied Territories, the emphasis on compliance with the norms of international law in the Court’s decisions has decreased. Instead of relying on international law, the Court has increased its reliance on Israeli administrative law, and, in recent years, on Israeli constitutional law. As a result, the distinction between the Occupied Territories and Israel is blurred. The article argues that this shift is consistent with a deliberate eradication of the distinction between Israel and the Occupied Territories by the legislator and the government. While the article does not argue that the Court intentionally supports this eradication, it does argue that it facilitates it.