Judgments of Interest:
The Israeli Supreme Court published its annual list of the Court’s most important decisions delivered between September 2019 and December 2020. Below, we present abstracts of selected cases, and links to English translations where available. The full Hebrew list can be viewed here. We also present a brief list of several recently published articles addressing or drawing upon Israeli law.
Articles of Interest:
The various measures adopted by the Israeli Government to confront the Covid-19 pandemic brought a flurry of petitions before the Supreme Court. The petitions ranged from a request to declare a Jewish leap year in order to delay Passover, to objections to particular restrictions and closures, and a challenge to the constitutionality of the contact-tracing regime adopted by the Government. Below, we present summaries of sixteen cases decided by the Court on petitions related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Due to the high rate of incidence of the coronavirus in the city of Bnei Brak, on April 2, 2020, the Israeli Government declared the city a “restricted zone” for a period of six days, effectively putting the entire city under quarantine. The declaration was made by virtues of emergency regulations promulgated to confront the coronavirus epidemic.
In response to the corona virus epidemic, the Israeli government promulgated two sets of emergency regulations: (1) Emergency Regulations (Authorization of the Israel Security Agency to aid in the national effort to limit the spread of the new corona virus), 5780-2020; (2) Emergency Regulations (Location Data), 5780-2020.
The Israeli Supreme Court Blog
In this issue of the Israeli Supreme Court Blog we present abstracts of four recent decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court.
The Israeli Supreme Court Blog
This issue of the Israeli Supreme Court Blog presents summaries of the recent decisions in LAA 7216/18 Lara Alqasem v. Ministry of the Interior and LCA 5860/16 Facebook v. Ben Hamu, as well as links to the Decisions of the IDF Military Advocate General Regarding Exceptional Incidents During Operation “Protective Edge” and two critiques of the decisions, and abstracts of two recent articles in the Israel Law Review.
Avinoam Sharon
The Israeli Supreme Court Blog
The Israeli Supreme Court Blog is part of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law’s Israeli Supreme Court Project. It is intended to supplement the English translations of Israeli Supreme Court judgments published by the Project by updating readers on the most recent developments in Israeli law and jurisprudence.
This issue of the Israeli Supreme Court Blog presents an abstract of the Supreme Court’s decision of May 24, 2018, addressing the lawfulness of the IDF’s rules of engagement during the recent events on the Gaza border (HCJ 3003/18), and refers to analyses of the decision by Prof. Amichai Cohen, Elena Chachko & Prof. Yuval Shany, and Prof. Eliav Lieblich.
There are at least three contexts in which the Court has grappled with Palestinians’ property rights and to which it has recently devoted attention: home demolitions, absentee properties, and the legality of settlements. As the Court notes, the legality of all of these practices is questionable under international law and possibly under Israeli law, yet they continue to be implemented by the Israeli Government. Some of these practices predate Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, so they cannot be struck down as unconstitutional.
Over the past three months, the Israeli Supreme Court has been called upon in at least three cases to revisit the issue of military demolition of the homes of Palestinians who have committed (or are suspected of having committed) acts of terror against Israelis. While the Court has declined to reconsider the constitutionality of home demolitions, in two of these cases Justices Vogelman and Mazuz have expressed concern about this measure, with Justice Mazuz calling on the Court to re-examine home demolitions as the relevant jurisprudence dates back at least two decades.
