Forty Years of Public Law

תקציר

It would be impossible in a short lecture to give a comprehensive survey of all the changes that have occurred in the last forty years in that branch of law known as "Israel common law". I will not, therefore, try to do so. Instead, I wish to single out the most distinctive phenomenon in this area of law. I refer to the conceptual/intellectual revolution in the outlook of the court regarding the nature of its judicial function. The original view, according to which the sole function of the court in the area of public law is to decide disputes between citizens and public authorities, has been abandoned and replaced by an outlook that views the court as an institution responsible for the legality of public administration, or, as the court it self is accustomed to defining the matter, for the rule of law. I shall divide my discussion into two parts. In the first part I will briefly discuss the prominent changes that have occurred in the judicial decisions regarding public law in recent years, and the judicial philosophy underlying these changes. I will then analyse a few judgments that were handed down during the first two or three years of the Supreme Court's existence in Israel, in an attempt to demonstrate the judicial outlook underlying those decisions. It seems to me that demonstrating this earlier outlook will suffice to make clear the nature of the judicial revolution.