Supreme Court Hall. Now the battle for the next generation of lawyers in Israel is over (Nati Shohat, Flash 90)
For thirty years now, legal conservatism in Israel has not been strong. A jurist who would express opinions against judicial activism and call for limiting the power of the court, without reservations, could be considered someone who expresses delusional and dangerous opinions and his legal career could be harmed. The best example is Prof. Ruth Gavizon, whose appointment to the Supreme Court was blocked due to her legally conservative views.
Various jurists in academia who express conservative legal opinions believe that in the end they will pay for it. In their opinion, if it weren’t for their opinions they would have been able to move forward.
Gavizon’s legal career was damaged by her legal opinions in the early 2000s. Since then Israeli awareness of legal conservatism has increased, but even now senior jurists can be harmed for their opinions. The most recent story is the story I published about a year ago.
The head of the legal department at the Ecclesiastical Forum, Dr. Aviad Bakshi, tried to be appointed to a judgeship. Bakshi realized that he would not be able to enter the Supreme Court, so he submitted a candidacy to be a judge in the district court in Tel Aviv. Bakshi is by all accounts a brilliant jurist, but he has a small problem. He is a right-wing man, and a legal conservative.
When Bakhshi appeared before the committee for the selection of judges, the subcommittee’s focus was on his legal opinions – and especially on the great wrongdoing of his involvement in the enactment of the Nationality Basic Law.
Chief Justice Uzi Fogelman proposed to move the nomination of the senior jurist to one of the junior magistrate courts, thereby thwarting the nomination of a senior conservative jurist for a senior position in the judicial system only because of his opinions.
This is how the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom was born
One of the tireless lawyers working in Israel for legal conservatism is Simcha Rothman. Rothman started his career as an intern in the consulting and legislation department at the Ministry of Justice, and after a short work in the office he opened an independent law firm and founded the Movement for Governance and Democracy. Today, the conservative jurist who fought the judicial activism of the High Court, serves as a member of the Knesset and a member of the committee for the selection of judges.
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In 2016 Rothman went to a conference of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies in Washington. Rothman understood that the way to change the face of the justice system passes through two intersections. The first is the appointment of judges, and at that time Rothman advised the Minister of Justice at the time Ayelet Shaked regarding the appointment of judges. The second node is the change of consciousness of the students who study law and are hardly exposed to conservative legal opinions. At the conference, Rothman tested the feasibility of establishing a sister movement in Israel, and at the end of 2019, Keren Tikva picked up the gauntlet and established the Israeli Forum for Justice and Freedom.
At the end of 2019, the first official delegation of the Israeli Forum went to the conference of the Federalist Association. The delegation included Shaked’s advisor, Gil Bringer, Simcha Rothman, and the academic specialist in constitutional law, Dr. Shuki Segev. Thus, the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom was officially launched.
Within three years: hundreds of students and thousands of members
From the first days of the forum, it has been led by attorney Yonatan Green in the role of CEO and Alana Meisel in the role of chairperson. Today, under the management of Yonatan and Elana during the difficult Corona years, the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom is the conservative legal organization with the widest footprint among the next generation of lawyers, law students.
Despite the corona, the forum has hundreds of students who are active in the various student cells in the law faculties in Israel. Thousands of Israeli lawyers and citizens who are not students are members of the forum.
Judge Alex Stein. Will participate in the conference of the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom (Hades Proosh, Flash 90)
The forum grew stronger in the three years it existed, and gained a lot of power. At the beginning of each university academic year, the forum provides an introduction to constitutional law for students who are about to start their first year, in order to expose students to a wide range of legal approaches and opinions and to introduce them to the activities of the forum and the student chambers.
In certain circles, in Israel and abroad, the forum’s position is taken very seriously. This coming Tuesday, the forum is organizing a conference with the participation of the conservative chief justice, Prof. Alex Stein.
Among the members of the forum delegation: a member of the committee for the selection of judges and a former minister of justice
The Federalist Society has ties to six of the nine Supreme Court Justices of the United States. At the Federal Association’s annual conference taking place these days, freshman judge Amy Cooney Barrett was scheduled to speak. A delegation of the Israeli Forum for Justice and Freedom went to this conference as well.
One of the senior members of the delegation of the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom, former Minister of Justice Amir Ohana (Oliver Pitosi, Flash 90)
This time, Knesset members Simcha Rothman and Amir Ohana are present among the members of the delegation, which shows the strength of the forum – this time it is no longer lawyers from Israel, but a serving member of the committee for the selection of judges and a former minister of justice. Neither one nor the other, the two chose to fly to Washington to the conservative convention even though these days the coalition negotiations are raging.
As far as the forum is concerned, Rothman and Ohana come to the conference as senior Israeli lawyers, not as politicians of one party or another. Each of the two serves as a member of a different party, but both hold the same views about the way the legal world should operate.
The battle for the identity of the judicial system: the conservatives are making significant gains
The main purpose of the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom is to build a community and connect jurists who hold conservative legal opinions. This connection, for many years, did not exist at all on this side of the legal map.
Bottom line, the purpose of the forum is to give a platform to conservative worldviews and to learn from the Federalist Association how to enrich the legal debate in Israel and introduce more legitimate opinions into the legal discourse. At the conference that is currently taking place in Washington, the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom closes three years of activity – including two years due to Corona.
With hundreds of students, thousands of forum members, a member of the committee for selecting judges and a former minister of justice, the Israeli Forum for Law and Freedom is preparing to continue its activities for Israeli legal conservatism. From the achievements to date, it seems that the forum is making significant achievements in the battle for the identity of the legal system in Israel.
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