Basic Constitutional Principles
In the early1990s, two basic laws pertaining to human rights were passed (Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation). These laws pose a paramount challenge before lawmakers: to adapt Israeli legislation to these two basic laws. This is an exhaustive task, since a great deal of Israeli law is dated back to the Mandate-era or to the state’s early years. Such legislation is not in keeping with the special status of human rights as expressed in the new basic laws. To bring the basic laws’ exalted content “down to earth” and closer to reality, existing legislation should be re-examined in light of the basic laws. The Constitutional Principles and their Implementation program was created for this purpose.
In 1995, as per the request of the Minister of Justice at the time, Prof. David Libai, the Israeli Democracy Institute undertook a part of this task: It proposed legislation amendments, inspired by Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation, for a broad reform of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations 1954. It also examined legislation about 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 Institute has also called for a reform in the penal code, encompassing offenses against the government, offenses against life and offenses against property. A special effort was made to explore freedom of speech and its boundaries: many of the restrictions placed on freedom of speech were examined, and necessary changes were proposed. Lately, existing legislation regarding revocation of citizenship is being re-examined.
Additionally, the program seeks to follow developments in the legislation and implementation of 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, the program has sought to enrich professional and public discourse with basic terms from public law, such as human dignity, balance, proportionality, equality, conflict of interest, activism, judicial restraint and others.
Since 2007 the program has also dealt with security and democracy, political corruption, the media and with proposing benchmarks for evaluating the functioning of the Attorney General:
- The Institute is examining the complex relationship between security and democracy to answer the question of how a democracy should deal effectively with threats to its security – particularly when facing terrorism – without harming its democratic nature. Democratic governance in times of emergency is being examined, both in the context of a time-limited and an unlimited emergency.
- In dealing with the media, the Institute is preparing materials for training journalists in professional ethics and in professional journalism, and will provide assistance in their training.
- For the long run, the Institute is preparing materials for the education system on the topics of human dignity and basic rights. It is also involved in formulating a proposal to the education system, regarding ways to bring democratic-humanistic contents into history, literature and Bible classes.
- The Institute is keeping up to date and re-examining Israeli Democracy in light of international trends and local developments.
We hope our activity in these areas will affect legislation, litigation, interpretation, government policy and public discourse.