Summary
The series of laws enacted by the Knesset as building blocks toward a written constitution for Israel, which in The Jewish State: A Century Later amount to an impressive body of “constitutional” material in a state that has never had a formal, entrenched, written constitution (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 2617-2799).
Details
- Dowty’s Chapter 4 records the route by which a written constitution, stymied by secular-religious disagreement over the Jewish state’s basic character, was replaced by Basic Laws adopted one by one, beginning with the Transition Law of February 1949, the “Small Constitution” (lines 1330-1474).
- Dowty’s Chapter 6 counts nine of the eleven projected Basic Laws passed, as well as two pieces of what was to have been the tenth, and Table 3, “Basic Laws of the State of Israel”, lists eleven with their years as printed: The Knesset 1958; Israel Lands 1960; President of the State 1964; The Government 1968; The State Economy 1971; Israel Defense Forces 1976; Jerusalem, Capital of Israel 1980; The Judicature 1984; The State Comptroller 1987; Freedom of Occupation 1992; Human Dignity and Freedom 1992 (lines 2617-2799).
- The last two were to have been part of a Basic Law on Civil Rights but were passed separately when other parts of that proposed law bogged down in controversies over security concerns and religious opposition; the projected eleventh Basic Law, on Legislation, also raises religious objections since it affirms the legitimacy of nonreligious sources of law, so completing the process is problematic (lines 2617-2799).
- Only specified clauses in some of the Basic Laws are entrenched, requiring an absolute majority (or in one case a majority of 80 members) of the Knesset for any change; otherwise any provision can, like ordinary legislation, be changed or invalidated by a simple majority of those voting, as has in fact happened; for the constitution as a whole to be entrenched the Knesset would have to vote away its own prerogatives (lines 2617-2799).
- The Basic Law: The Knesset (1958) entrenched proportionality in the electoral system, with a threshold of 1.5 percent (1 percent before 1991) (lines 1475-2211). The Basic Law: Israel Defense Forces (1976) formalized civilian control of the army (lines 1915-2211).
- In 1969 the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, invalidated an election financing law that conflicted with an entrenched provision of a Basic Law but had not been passed by the absolute majority needed to amend it (Bergman v. Minister of Finance); similar actions in 1981 and 1982 negated changes to entrenched provisions passed without the required absolute majority — in essence forcing the Knesset to observe its own rules (lines 2617-2799).
- Dowty’s net assessment: a steady growth of constitutionality over time, with the basic contours of Israel’s political and legal order stabilized; alongside the Basic Laws, the Declaration of Independence, the Law of Return (1950), the 1952 law on the status of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency, and the Equal Rights for Women Law (1951) also carry an aura of basic definition of government (lines 2617-2799).
Related pages
The Jewish State: A Century Later, Law of Return, Administrative Detention, British Emergency Regulations