Project Director: Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer
In the early1990s, the Israeli Knesset passed two basic laws with quasi-constitutional status. These were Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. This legislation opened up a gap between the lofty conception of human rights embodied in the new Basic Laws and much of the body of Israeli law, which dates back to the British Mandate or to the State’s early years and is not in keeping with the special status accorded human rights in a modern democracy. Closing this gap by modifying the Israeli legal corpus to accord with the Basic Laws poses an enormous challenge to Israeli lawmakers. It entails translating the lofty principles of the basic laws into practical terms, bringing them “down to earth” and closer to reality, and redrafting an enormous body of laws accordingly. To assist the Knesset in this endeavor, IDI created the Constitutional Principles and Their Implementation Program.
In 1995, in response to the request of the Minister of Justice at the time, Prof. David Libai, IDI assumed part of this task. Under the guidance of Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer, then a Senior Fellow at IDI and now Vice President for Research on Democracy, the program research team proposed a broad reform of Defense (Emergency) Regulations 1954 through legislative amendments inspired by Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. The project also reviewed legislation dealing with the disqualification of candidates and lists for the Knesset.
In the years 1999-2001, at the initiative of then Minister of Justice, Dr. Yossi Beilin, the program proposed a reform of the penal code that encompasses offenses against the government, offenses against life and offenses against property. IDI made a special effort to explore the issue of freedom of speech and its boundaries, reviewing many of the restrictions placed on freedom of speech, and proposing requisite changes. The Institute has recently begun to reexamine legislation regarding the revocation of citizenship.
The Constitutional Principles and their Implementation Program also seeks to follow developments in the legislation and implementation of pertinent laws to ensure that the nature of the Israeli judicial system is essentially democratic. In this context, position papers have been drafted regarding the proposed Israel Security Agency Law and the recommendations of the Orr Commission. Since 2006, this program has sought to enrich professional and public discourse with the basic terminology of public law, such as human dignity, balance, proportionality, equality, conflict of interest, activism, judicial restraint and others.
Since 2007, the program has also addressed the issues of security and democracy, political corruption, the media and the proposal for benchmarks to evaluate the performance of the Attorney General.
Toward the realization of its long range projects in the field of education, the Institute is preparing materials on the topics of human dignity and basic rights for the education system. It is also involved in formulating a proposal regarding methods to incorporate democratic-humanistic material into History, Literature and Bible classes.
The Institute keeps abreast of international trends and local developments, and is continually reexamining Israeli democracy within this context. We strive to ensure that our activities in all these areas have a continual impact on legislation, litigation, legal interpretation, government policy and public discourse.