Sunday, December 31, 2006

Barak Revelatus

Now that Aharon Barak has retired from the Supreme Court, a lot of long overdue criticism of his judicial philosophy is finally being heard. It was so intense last week that he became uncharacteristically defensive and felt called upon to assert his Zionist credentials. Righteous indignation aside, the criticisms are all well-taken.

Mosny of these have been published in Azure. Those by Evelyn Gordon and Mordechai Haller being the most important.

Now, in a major coup, the magazine has published a trenchent, and brilliant, critique of Barak by Robert Bork.

His concluding paragraph says it all:

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 78, wrote that “the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution,” because it “has no influence over either the sword or the purse.” Hamilton badly underestimated the capacity of the Supreme Court to go well beyond its constitutional mandate, but the Israeli court, by its assertion of the power to control both sword and purse, may well be the branch most dangerous to the political rights of the nation.

Now, I know some will dismiss this because of Bork's reputation as a Conservative ideologue. I suggest, however, that everyone who hold Israel dear read this piece with an open mind.

2 comments:

Ben Bayit said...

BTW, I have to agree with Barak on one thing - his most far-reaching rulings were not in Const. law and in International Law. They were in Family Law (as he stated) and I would add in Civil Law. His rulings on Property Law were much more far reaching and involved much more judicial activism than in anything else he did. As Prof. Auman pointed out last week - possibly to the the long-term detirment of the weaker elements of society

Anonymous said...

are you and Judge Bork the last two people who haven't yet realized that the Shalem Center has been co-opted by the left and is no longer really a Neo-Conservative think tank? and that all Yoram Hazony wants to do is dance mah yafis to the elites? The only question really is whether or not he was always like that or it's only since he moved from Eli to Ramot.