Constitutionalism

Roundtable: Constitutionalism in Israel

Ruth Gavison and more Yale Israel Journal
Roundtable: Constitutionalism in Israel

Featuring: Ruth Gavison, Alon Harel, Ron Harris, Orit Kamir, Claude Klein, Barak Medina, Frances Raday and Edna Ullmann-Margalit. Participants in the roundtable responded to the following questions:

Legislatures and the Phases and Components of Constitutionalism

All constitutions seek to enable government, structure its powers and limit them. To do this effectively, constitutions must enjoy a legitimacy which is broader and deeper than that enjoyed by any specific organ of government or any specific polic...


Constitutionalism and Political Reconstruction: Israel's Quest for a Constitution

Abstract: Israel’s Declaration of the Foundation of the State of May 14, 1948 specified, as required by the UN resolution 181, that Israel will be a constitutional democracy. However, the planned elections for a constituent assembly were disrupted...

The Israeli Constitutional Process: Legislative Ambivalence and Judicial Resolute Drive

Ruth Gavison Center for the Study of Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Israeli Constitutional Process: Legislative Ambivalence and Judicial Resolute Drive

In most constitutional regimes, legislatures as well as other constitutional powers operate under and within an agreed-upon constitution. Often, they are established by it and gain their legitimacy and stability, to a large extent, from it. The co...


What Belongs in a Constitution?(1)

RUTH GAVISON* Constitutional Political Economy 13, 39-105
What Belongs in a Constitution?(1)

Abstract: The essay argues that the content of constitutions should derive from its political functions: granting stability and legitimacy to government. There are three main candidates for inclusion in constitutions: regime arrangements, human ri...

An early draft of Knesset Israel's constitution (c. 1910)

Recent years have seen the emergence in Israel of a public debate over whether to adopt a formal constitution, what values and institutions such a constitution ought to enshrine, and how to go about formulating and ratifying it. While any serious ...