Public Law in Israel

The origins of this work lie in an attempt by Israeli lawyers to describe and analyse the remarkable efforts of the Supreme Court of Israel to intervene in all kinds of government actions on behalf of basic civil rights and the preservation of the rule of law. Working essentially with the basic English common law tools of constitutional and administrative law, and without the aid of a written Bill of Rights, The Supreme Court recognized that Israel's special political and social realities warranted an extraordinary judicial vigilance. Its rich bounty of jurisprudence reveals a judiciary prepared to deviate from the established common law rules concerning non-justiciability, administrative discretion and judicial restraint, as well as the ordinary rules of locus standi whenever faced with the denial of justice or of deprivation of basic civil rights. The book is divided into three sections: human rights; adminstrative action; and judicial review. The format of the book is a series of chapters examining the principal topics under each of these headings followed by selected primary sources - either laws enacted by the Knesset or decisions of the Supreme Court. In this form it gives the readers both an excellent overview of the present state of public law in Israel as well as access to the sources required to understand, at a more profound level, the forces which shape it.