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May 20, 2005/Iyar 11 5765, Volume 57, No. 38
Legislators hear pros, cons for constitution
RON KAMPEAS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Members of a Knesset committee charged with coming up with a constitution for the Jewish state got some unexpected advice on a tour of the United States and Canada: Israel's checks and balances are coming along just fine.
Canvassing Canadian and American legislators, Supreme Court judges and top lawyers in both countries, they often heard the same message: Israel's current system, haphazard and jury-rigged as it is, has much that is praiseworthy.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's first words to the group were, "I admire Israel and I admire Aharon Barak," its chief justice.
To be sure, the committee got plenty of advice anyway, particularly regarding how Israel leaves judicial appointments mostly to standing judges. Some in North America see Barak's activist role - he has advised legislators about pending legislation - as untoward.
Still, the overall warm impressions of Israel's legal system raised questions about whether the constitutional project was necessary - or whether existing problems could be tweaked through conventional legislation.
It's precisely the role Barak and his Supreme Court have played in filling in the gaps between Israel's Basic Laws - a body of laws that function as an interim constitution - that prodded the creation in the 1990s of a committee to establish whether Israel should formalize a constitution.
Israel's high court overturns legislation with greater frequency than its U.S. counterpart, and at times legislates in a way U.S. courts would never consider.
In recent years, the high court overturned a legislative ban on the sale of pork, citing a basic law guaranteeing freedom of commerce. It also ordered the military to reroute Israel's West Bank security barrier.
If anything, the tour appeared to reinforce the views of some on the committtee that Israel doesn't need a constitution.
Others still favored a constitution.
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