The former Minister of Justice, Haim J. Zadok, was born in 1913 in the town of Reve-Roska in Eastern Galicia, now Ukraine. He was involved in public life as a lawyer, legislator and minister during the pre-state period and for decades after the establishment of the state. The Israel Democracy Institute Award is presented to Haim Zadok in recognition of his important contribution to the establishment of the constitutional framework of Israel’s democracy through the construction and formulation of governmental and administrative norms, his contribution to the strengthening of the rule of law in Israel, and his commitment to the basic values of society, the protection of human rights, freedom of the press and proper public administration.
During the War of Independence, Zadok joined the IDF as a lawyer in the office of the Chief Military Prosecutor, which was one of the first incarnations of the office of the Military Advocate General. At that time, the army’s legal system was just beginning to take shape, and this represented one of the earliest attempts to come to terms with the tensions that existed between the country’s security needs and its laws. The affair surrounding the execution of Meir Tobiansky after a field court martial in 1948 brought about a change of priorities and made the need to regulate the military justice system one of the central issues of the political-defense establishment.
In 1949, following the War of Independence, Zadok joined the legislative department of the Ministry of Justice as a deputy of the Legal Advisor to the Government. As a member of a small team of senior officials, Zadok took part in the preparation of the laws that determined the basic arrangements for the government of the new state. In addition to dealing with fundamental issues that were and remain on the public agenda, such as law and security and religion and state, the Ministry of Justice was also laying the foundations for the practical operation of the civic state in the fields of education, society and welfare.
As a member of the Knesset from 1958, Zadok held the following positions: Chairman of the Knesset House Committee, member of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Affairs, and member and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. As a legislator, he was actively involved in the passing of the Law on Commissions of Inquiry and the Basic Law: the Government, as well as in attempts to pass basic laws on Legislation and Civil Rights, sections of which were later passed in the Basic Laws on Human Dignity and Freedom and Freedom of Occupation. As Minister of Industry and Trade during the mid-1960s, when the Israeli economy was in recession, Zadok tended – on the basis of a social-democratic approach – towards a policy of more careful intervention in the economy based purely on professional considerations, thus abandoning the policy of ideological investment.
In 1974, Zadok became Minister of Justice, a position which he held until the change of government in 1977. Zadok’s significant contribution to the passing of the Basic Laws, which started when he was a member of the Knesset, continued during his time at the Ministry of Justice. From the very beginning of his tenure, and in collaboration with the Legal Advisor to the Government, Meir Shamgar, later President of the Supreme Court, the legislative effort gained substantial momentum. When Shamgar was made a Judge, Zadok appointed Professor Aharon Barak, the current President of the Supreme Court, as Legal Advisor to the Government. With the assistance of these advisors, many laws were passed, including the Basic Law: the Army, which defined and regulated the subordination of the army to the political echelon – an arrangement whose absence was strongly felt during the course of events that led to the Yom Kippur War – and the Basic Law: the State Economy, which regulated, among other things, the process for deciding the state budget and its framework and determined that the state economy would be subject to review by the State Comptroller. Towards the end of Zadok’s tenure at the Ministry of Justice, the translation of the Criminal Law Ordinance from the time of the British Mandate was completed, and amendments to the Ordinance were compiled for the formulation of a new and integrated Penal Code.
The period of Zadok’s tenure at the Ministry of Justice was a turbulent one. There were investigations of senior figures in the Israeli economy and Israeli politics, including Labor Party members and personal friends of Zadok, and even Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The Legal Advisor to the Government, Aharon Barak, was under considerable pressure. Zadok, who recognized the importance of the independence of the Legal Advisor to the Government, stood firm against calls from within the Party to intervene in the investigation.
During his tenure as Minister of Justice, Zadok was also the first secular Minister of Religious Affairs. During two short stints at the Ministry, Zadok worked to make the Rabbinical Courts more efficient and to strengthen relations with the religious leaders of all faiths, conveying the message that the Ministry would be a Ministry for all faiths, not only the Jewish faith. In 1978, Zadok retired from political life.
In the 1980s and 1990s, alongside his work in his own private law office, Zadok devoted much of his time and energy to public activity. When the Shin-Bet affair became public, Zadok called for justice to be done with regard to those that carried out the orders and those that sent them, and he protested the involvement of judicial and governmental agents in the subversion of the investigation and in the granting of a pardon before the legal process had been completed. Zadok spoke out in the press against the granting of a pardon to the members of the Jewish Underground and warned against the creation of a parallel, non-democratic legal system in the West Bank and the Gaza. He called for negotiations on an equal footing with representatives that were acceptable to the Palestinians and fought hard against the Law for the Direct Election of the Prime Minister, which he regarded as a dangerous venture.
Zadok has been a member of numerous public committees that have dealt with a wide range of issues. He was a member of the Shamgar Commission, which considered the definition of the role and appointment of the Legal Advisor to the Government, and he chaired committees that considered the regulation of police activity, the religious councils and the press. In 1991, he was one of the founders of the Israel Democracy Institute and served as the first Chairman of its Board of Directors. After 1993, he served as President of the Press Council. The period of his tenure as President of the Press Council was a time of many changes and developments in the Israeli media. The closing down of veteran newspapers and the rise of new forces in the media sector (especially in the field of electronic media) have created new challenges and intensified existing ones. The problem of overlapping ownership in various media and, in particular, the wire-tapping affair, have placed the dangers that threaten and emerge from a free press on the public agenda. Haim Zadok held liberal views that ruled out government intervention in the free press, yet he always strove for the improvement of professional and, above all, ethical standards in the Israeli media. His is a unique and authoritative voice in the public crusade for the promotion of democratic values in Israeli society.