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The Basic Laws of Israel ( he, , Ḥukey HaYesod) are thirteen
constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...
s of the
State of Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, and some of them can only be changed by a
supermajority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority ru ...
vote in the
Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...
(with varying requirements for different Basic Laws and sections). Many of these laws are based on the
individual liberties Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
that were outlined in the
Israeli Declaration of Independence The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( he, הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 ( 5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive ...
. The Basic Laws deal with the formation and role of the principal institutions of the state, and with the relations between the state's authorities. They also protect the country's civil rights, although some of these rights were earlier protected at
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
by the
Supreme Court of Israel The Supreme Court (, ''Beit HaMishpat HaElyon''; ar, المحكمة العليا) is the Supreme court, highest court in Israel. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all other courts, and in some cases original jurisdiction. The Supreme C ...
. The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty enjoys super-legal status, giving the Supreme Court the authority to disqualify any law contradicting it, as well as protection from Emergency Regulations. The Basic Laws were intended to be draft chapters of a future Israeli constitution, which has been postponed since 1950; they act as a ''de facto'' constitution until their future incorporation into a formal, unitary, written constitution. Israel is one of 6 countries (along with
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,
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,
San Marino San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...
,
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
and the
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) that operates entirely or in part according to an
uncodified constitution An uncodified constitution is a type of constitution where the fundamental rules often take the form of custom (law), customs, usage, precedent and a variety of statutes and legal instruments.Johari, J. C. (2006) ''New Comparative Government'', ...
consisting of both material constitutional law (based upon cases and precedents), common law, and the provisions of these formal statutes.


Background

The
State of Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
has an
unwritten constitution An uncodified constitution is a type of constitution where the fundamental rules often take the form of custom (law), customs, usage, precedent and a variety of statutes and legal instruments.Johari, J. C. (2006) ''New Comparative Government'', ...
. Instead of a formal
written constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princi ...
, and in accordance with the Harari Decision () of 13 June 1950 adopted by the Israeli Constituent Assembly (the First Knesset), the State of Israel has enacted several Basic Laws of Israel dealing with government arrangements and with human rights. The
Israeli Supreme Court The Supreme Court (, ''Beit HaMishpat HaElyon''; ar, المحكمة العليا) is the Supreme court, highest court in Israel. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all other courts, and in some cases original jurisdiction. The Supreme C ...
President
Aharon Barak Aharon Barak ( he, אהרן ברק; born Erik Brick, 16 September 1936) is an Israeli lawyer and jurist who served as President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006. Prior to this, Barak served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of I ...
ruled that the Basic Laws should be considered the state's constitution, and that became the common approach throughout his tenure (1995-2006). Opponents of this approach included Barak's colleague, Supreme Court Justice
Mishael Cheshin Mishael Cheshin ( he, מישאל חשין‎; 16 February 1936 – 19 September 2015) was an Israeli Justice who served in the Supreme Court of Israel from 1992 to 2006. Born in Beirut, Greater Lebanon, Cheshin was the son of Leah (née Margal ...
. According to Israel's
Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...
of 14 May 1948, a constituent assembly should have prepared a constitution by 1 October 1948. The delay and the eventual decision on 13 June 1950 to legislate a constitution chapter by chapter, resulted primarily from the inability of different groups in Israeli society to agree on the purpose of the state, on the state's identity, and on a long-term
vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...
. Another factor was the opposition of
David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
(
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
1948-1954 and 1955-1963). Various bodies in Israel have called for the enactment of a formal constitution as a single document, and have submitted ideas and drafts for consideration. The
Israeli Declaration of Independence The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( he, הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 ( 5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive ...
stated that a formal constitution would be formulated and adopted no later than 1 October 1948. The deadline set in the declaration of independence proved unrealistic in light of the
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
between the new state and its Arab neighbors.
General elections A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
eventually took place on 25 January 1949 in order to elect a Constituent Assembly which would approve the new state's constitution. The Constituent Assembly convened in February 1949. It held several discussions about the constitution without reaching an agreement. For a number of reasons, Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, did not wish to develop a constitution. After only four meetings, the Constituent Assembly adopted on 16 February 1949 the Transition Law, by which means it became the "
First Knesset Constituent Assembly elections were held in newly independent Israel on 25 January 1949. Voter turnout was 86.9%. Two days after its first meeting on 14 February 1949, legislators voted to change the name of the body to the Knesset (Hebrew: כ ...
". Because the Constituent Assembly did not prepare a constitution for Israel, the Knesset is the heir of the Assembly for the purpose of fulfilling this function. The Basic Laws do not cover all constitutional issues, and there is no deadline set for the completion of the process of merging them into one comprehensive constitution. There is no clear rule determining the precedence of Basic Laws over regular legislation, and in many cases such issues are left to interpretation by the judicial system.


The "Constitutional Revolution" and the development of judicial review


The Israeli constitution prior to 1992

In 1950 the First
Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...
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. Basic laws functioning as a constitution. Between 1958 and 1988 the Knesset passed nine Basic Laws, all of which pertained to the
institution Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s of state. The power of judicial review is not addressed in Basic Law: The Judiciary, or elsewhere in Israel’s Basic Laws. Prior to 1992, the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, rejected multiple opportunities to claim the power of judicial review. Just after Israel’s founding, in the 1948 ''Ziv'' case the Court ruled against interpreting Israel’s Declaration of Independence as the nation’s constitutional document, and in 1970, the Court reaffirmed this principle in the ''Rogozinsky'' case. In ''Rogozinsky'', the Court went so far as to explicitly deny itself the right to judicial review of ordinary Knesset legislation. However, near the same time as the ''Rogozinsky'' case, the Court began to indicate a different posture with regard to judicial review of entrenched Basic Laws. At the time, the only provision in the Basic Laws that was entrenched was section 4 of Basic Law: The Knesset, which required “general, national, direct, equal, secret, and proportional elections” for the Knesset, and required an absolute majority of 61 MKs to amend. In its 1969 ''Bergman'' decision, the Supreme Court implicitly assumed the power of substantive judicial review, invalidating a public financing law that denied public funds to political parties not represented in the previous Knesset on the grounds that the law violated section 4. The Court grounded its power to strike down the law in the fact that the Knesset had failed to pass it with the absolute majority required, in the process upholding the principle of entrenchment in Israeli constitutional law. While this created only a procedural requirement that the Knesset had to meet to enact the law — namely reaching an absolute majority when passing a law in conflict with it — it also demonstrated the Court’s willingness to determine whether Knesset legislation met the substantive requirements of Basic Laws. However, the Court explicitly refused to endorse the principle of judicial review of all Knesset legislation, explicitly stating that it did not intend for the ''Bergman'' decision to address that point. It further reinforced this stance in its 1974 ''Negev'' decision, clarifying that the Court lacked the power of judicial review in cases where the standard for potential review was an unentrenched ordinary law or Basic Law.


The Constitutional Revolution of 1992-1995

In 1992 the Knesset passed the first two Basic Laws that related to human rights and to the basis of the Supreme Court's recently declared powers of
judicial review Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompat ...
. These are "Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty" and " Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation". Both Basic Laws contain clauses prohibiting the violation of the rights they enumerate, “except by a law befitting the values of the State of Israel, enacted for a proper purpose, and to an extent no greater than is required.” This limitations clause is contained in section 8 of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom and section 4 of Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. These were passed by votes of 32–21 and 23–0 respectively, and Knesset debates indicate that many MKs were not aware that these laws pertained to the constitutional entrenchment of any rights nor that they affected the status of judicial review in Israel. However, Justice
Aharon Barak Aharon Barak ( he, אהרן ברק; born Erik Brick, 16 September 1936) is an Israeli lawyer and jurist who served as President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006. Prior to this, Barak served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of I ...
, who would become President of the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
(equivalent to Chief Justice of the United States), explicitly declared that the passage of these Basic Laws had initiated a constitutional revolution in Israel. Barak argued that Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation, which was explicitly entrenched to require a 61 MK majority to amend under section 7, and Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom — which was not entrenched in the same way, but in Barak’s view required the Knesset to explicitly declare its intent to violate the law, in a similar manner to the Canadian Bill of Rights’ “notwithstanding clause” — created a set of generalities and conflicting principles in the Basic Laws, which meant that it fell to the judiciary to interpret and “ ivecontent to” those laws. Barak’s declaration of a “constitutional revolution” presaged his majority opinion in the landmark 1995 ''Bank Mizrahi v. Migdal Cooperative Village'' case. ''Bank Mizrahi'' declared that due to the limitations clauses included in the 1992 Basic Laws, the Basic Laws now formed a written constitution that the courts had the power to uphold via judicial review. The more specific holding of ''Bank Mizrahi'' was that Knesset legislation that violates the limitations clauses of Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation and Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom is void no matter what majority passed the law, rejecting its position in ''Bergman'' and elaborated in ''Negev'' that only constitutionally entrenched Basic Laws empowered the court to exercise judicial review. The Court’s main reasoning was that the Knesset holds two distinct roles within the Israeli state depending on the type of legislation it is enacting. In addition to its position as the legislative branch, which it occupies when dealing with ordinary legislation, the Knesset acts as a constituent assembly empowered to write a formal constitution for Israel when passing Basic Laws, deriving this authority from the First Knesset’s Harari Decision to pass on the task of writing the constitution to the Second Knesset. This marked a significant departure from the British system of parliamentary sovereignty that Israel inherited and practiced prior to the Constitutional Revolution, as it permitted a Knesset to bind its successors. Outgoing Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar’s concurring opinion in ''Bank Mizrahi'' did not recognize the Knesset’s role as a constituent assembly and instead argued that the Knesset had an explicit power of self-limitation even when acting in its legislative capacity, but this interpretive approach has not been cited in subsequent cases. The cumulative impact of the ''Bank Mizrahi'' decision was that it established judicial review of ordinary Knesset legislation, significantly curbing the Knesset’s parliamentary supremacy, and according to some Israeli constitutional scholars, fully converted the Israeli constitution from an unwritten constitution to a formal, written constitution, albeit an incomplete one.


Impacts of the Constitutional Revolution on the structure of the Israeli state

The limitations clauses function as both limitations on human rights, but also as an acknowledgement of substantive entrenchment, rather than the purely procedural entrenchment of section 4 of Basic Law: The Knesset recognized in the ''Bergman'' decision. Previously, the Knesset could repeal even Basic Laws simply through passing conflicting statutes, by virtue of parliamentary sovereignty. By contrast, ''Bank Mizrahi'' empowered the Knesset which passed the limitations clauses to bind future Knesset sessions to comply with those clauses or have their legislation struck down via judicial review. In this approach to entrenchment, the current Israeli system mirrors the entrenchment of the Canadian Bill of Rights, as both laws are weakly entrenched such that while Knesset and Canadian parliament legislation can be struck down by their respective courts for failing to comply with their respective entrenched laws, both parliaments can override this provision by either explicitly stating their intent to do so or amending the conflicting laws themselves, depending on the case. Shortly after ''Bank Mizrahi'' was announced, the Knesset declared that it would review proposed laws for compliance with other Basic Laws going forward, and coalition government agreements since this case have included the stipulation that no party would attempt to modify Basic Laws without the agreement of all coalition partners.Navot, Suzi. ''The Constitution of Israel: A Contextual Analysis''. Constitutional Systems of The World. Oxford, United Kingdom ; Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2014.


Procedure for amendment

The Knesset enjoys ''de jure'' parliamentary supremacy and can pass any law by a simple majority, even one that might arguably conflict with a Basic Laws of Israel, unless the basic law has specific conditions for its modification. Basic laws that include specific conditions include the following: * Article 4 of the Basic Law of the Knesset, on the electoral system, can be amended only by a majority of 61 of the 120 Knesset members. * Article 44, which prevents the amendment of the law by an Emergency Regulation, can be amended only by a majority of 80 members. A majority of the Knesset members can amend the Basic Laws on the government and on freedom of occupation.


List of the Basic Laws of Israel


See also

*
Israeli nationality law Israeli citizenship law details the conditions by which a person holds citizenship of Israel. The two primary pieces of legislation governing these requirements are the 1950 Law of Return and 1952 Citizenship Law. Every Jew in the world has ...
*
Land and Property laws in Israel Land and property laws in Israel are the property law component of Israeli law, providing the legal framework for the ownership and other '' in rem'' rights towards all forms of property in Israel, including real estate (land) and movable property ...
*
Law of Israel Israeli law is based mostly on a common law legal system, though it also reflects the diverse history of the territory of the State of Israel throughout the last hundred years (which was at various times prior to independence under Ottoman, the ...
*
Law of Return The Law of Return ( he, חֹוק הַשְׁבוּת, ''ḥok ha-shvūt'') is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews, people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Isra ...


References


Other sources

* * *
The Existing Basic Laws: Full Texts (English)
the
Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...
(Israeli Parliament) website, official translations - NOTE: The 1968 Basic Law: the Government translation is missing provisions, probably amendments added later on. As opposed to the 1968 and 2001 basic Law: the Government translations, the 1992 Basic Law: the Government uses the term "Acting PM" to refer to an "Interim Prime Minister" as well. The 2001 Law, which is in effect, present all provision in the translation, however, there are some lines missing. It is recommended to use the Hebrew laws official publications in th
Knesset
website. *Jewish Law in the Debates of the Knesset (HaMishpat HaIvri b'Chakikat HaKneset) edited by Prof. Nahum Rakover. 2 vols., 1310 pp. 159-190.


External links


Basic Laws
Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...
website. Introduction and summaries
Basic Laws
Knesset website. List with links to full texts

Knesset website, 2007. Explains why there isn't a constitution

Knesset website, 2014. Project portal for the drafting of a constitution. {{DEFAULTSORT:Basic Laws of Israel Government of Israel Politics of Israel Uncodified constitutions