Biography
Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer is Vice President for Research on Democracy at IDI, where he heads the projects "Constitutional Principles and Their Implementation," "National Security and Democracy," and "Political Corruption in Israel." He is the Bruce W.Wayne Professor of Criminal Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he teaches Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and was formerly Dean of the Faculty. He has been a Senior Fellow at IDI Since 1994.
Born in Fuert, Germany, Prof. Kremnitzer studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, from which he received his PhD in 1980. He has published extensively in the fields of criminal, military, and public law, and is co-author of the proposal for a new general part of the penal code for Israel (a proposal which has been adopted by the Knesset). His books, in Hebrew, deal with judicial activism, Basic Law: The Army, the offence of sedition, libel, official secrets, revocation of citizenship, disqualification of parties and lists, targeted killings, offences against the state, and the offence of breach of trust. In 1989, Prof. Kremnitzer received the Pinchas Rozen award for legal research, in 2003 he was awarded the Zeltner Prize for excellence in research, and in 2009 he received the Humboldt Research Award. He has advised the governments of Canada, Hungary and Finland on reform and legislation, and has been a visiting professor and researcher at The Max Planck Institute for comparative and international criminal law in Freiburg, Tulane University in the US, the Central European University in Budapest, Mcgill University in Montreal, and the institute for advanced studied of Berlin.
Professor Kremnitzer has served as chairman of many public committees, including a committee nominated by the Minister of Police on the use of force by the police (1994); a committee appointed by the Minister of Education on Education Towards Good Citizenship (1996); and a committee nominated by the Minster of Finance and the Minister of Justice to examine methods to deal with offences and misconduct of public employees (1998). Professor Kremnitzer was appointed chairperson of the Israeli Association of Public Law in 2002. He served as President of the Israeli Press Council (2000-2003) and as the academic head of the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University (2001-2003).
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email: motak@idi.org.il