Political Agreements - A Critical Introduction

תקציר

Political agreements are an integral part of the political system in Israel. For various reasons - mainly the proportional representation electoral system and the existence of a "third bloc" of religious parties that do no fit into the centre-right and centre-left political alliances no political party has ever enjoyed an absolute majority in the Knesset. The dominant parties have therefore always had to rely on coalition agreements with smaller parties in order to obtain, and subsequently maintain, the parliamentary majority required for a government to rule under Israel's parliamentary system. A similar situation exists in many municipal councils and in other elected bodies, such as the Bar Council. Questions relating to coalition agreements have found their way into the courts over the years, but until fairly recently the courts avoided taking a clear stand oh the legal status and implications of such agreements. However, in a series of decisions handed down over the last few years the Supreme Court has addressed some of the legal issues connected with such agreements.The Knesset also entered the picture and enacted legislation regulating certain aspects of coalition agreements. The appropriate legal approach to issues relating to coalition agreements has stirred controversy among judges on the Supreme Court, and the decisions of the Court have met with a mixed reception in the academic community. The Editorial Board of the Israel Law Review decided to devote the present issue to the controversy surrounding political agreements. Zerezevsky v. PrimeMinister, the main decision of the Supreme Court on questions relating to coalition agreements, is not available in English, and a summary of the decision, prepared by Judge Felix Landau, is presented. This is followed by three articles written by Israeli academics, each of whom adopts a different approach to the main question, viz., the legal status of a coalition agreement. As coalition agreements are not unique to Israel we have also included two articles written by scholars from European countries in which coalition agreements are a central feature of the political system. The object of the present introduction is two-fold: 1) to define the different legal issues that coalition agreements, and other political agreements, may raise; and 2) to present a critical assessment of the premises on which the Supreme Court of Israel has based its approach to the issue of legal status.