Editor of Judicature Magazine Pays Tribute to Israel's Judicial System

A glowing tribute was paid to Israel's court system by Glenn W.
Winters, editor of Judicature magazine published by American Judica-
ture Society.
Winters, editor of Judicature, on his recent visit in Israel, attended
court sessions in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and studied the judicial
rystems in territories acquired by Israel, in Ramallah and other areas,
and also in Beersheba and Nazareth.
He conferred with Israel's leading judges and was present at
several important hearings, including one that involved charges against
a judge, who was acquitted, and a breach of promise case which the
Judge (Moshe Etzioni) resolved amicably.
In the course of his interesting article, entitled "Israel's Courts
Live Up to Proud Heritage," Winters wrote:

The Tel Aviv District Court is
the largest, with 25 judges. Haifa
has 15 judges, Jerusalem 9 and
Beersheba 5. A new district court
is scheduled to be opened soon in
Nazareth. Judges normally sit fri
panels of three, and there is no
jury trial. All judges are selected
under a merit plan with appoint-
ment by the president of the state
upon nomination by a nominating
commission composed of Supreme
Court justices, lawyers, ministers
and members of the Knesset (par-
liament).
The bar of Israel, comprising
about 4,000 lawyers, was unified,
or integrated, in 1961, and is fully
self-governing.
The building in which the Su-
preme Court, the Jerusalem Dis-
trict Court and magistrates court
are housed makes up in historic
interest (a commodity of which
there is no scarcity in that ancient
land) what it undeniably lacks in
facilities for modern, efficient ju-
dicial administration. It is the main
building in the centrally-located
Russian Compound, which also in-
cludes a Russian church. The
building was erected more than a
century ago as a "hostel" for the
accommodation of Russian pil-
grims to the Holy Land, long be-
fore the advent of the fine, modern
tourist hotels, of which Israel has
its share.
Before the event which is uni-
versally referred to as the Six-Day
War, of June, 1967, a building in
the Arab sector of Jerusalem
housed the Jordanian trial courts
and a court of appeals. Upon Is-
rael's occupation of that area,
those courts moved out, and plans
now have been drawn up and ap-
proved to remodel and enlarge
that building, adding two more
stories, as the future home of the
Jerusalem District Court. While a
remodeling job does not give as
much freedom in planning as a
new building would, this building.
when completed, will have over-
come most of the shortcomings of
the Russian building and will be
reasonably adequate and satisfac-
tory.
The Supreme Court of Israel
presently is housed also in the
Russian building. I talked with
Chief Justice Shimon Agranat, and
Justices Elijah M. Manny and
Moshe Landau of that court. Judge
Agranat told me a fine new su-
preme court building with the best
of facilities and appropriate archi-
tectural design is now in the plan-
ning stage. It will be situated on
Mount Scopus, just north of the
Mount of Olives, next to the origi-
nal site of the university. This re-
mained inaccessible from the time
of independence in 1948 until the
Six-Day War, and it will now be
developed as a second university
campus, along with other public
buildings, including the Harry S.
Truman Center for the Advance-
ment of Peace which is now under
construction.
Israelis take justifiable pride in
the splendid complex of buildings
that houses the district and magis-
trates' courts in Tel Aviv. These
consist of two large eight-story
buildings, one for the District Court
and one for the magistrates, with
a basement passageway connect-
ing them, the two together occupy.
ing most of a city block. The plans
seemed daringly ambitious when
laid, but the buildings were five
years in the making, and now,

i/d61

after having been finished less
than a year, it is recognized that
they are already too small.
The Tel Aviv buildings are well
planned to provide the judicial
privacy that is now lacking in
Jerusalem. A private judges en-
trance leads to a special judges'
elevator, and there is a private
corridor connecting the judges'
chambers with each other. Public
access to the judges' chambers is
through an outer office in which
the judges' apprentice, compara-
ble to our law clerk, works. There
are also facilities for handling
criminal defendants without con-
tact with the public.
A tremendous population explo-
sion- is chiefly responsible for the
booming volume of litigation in
Israeli courts. In May 1948, when
independence was achieved, Jaffa
was a small seacoast town and a
large part of the area where Tel
Aviv is now situated was open
country. Today the Tel Aviv met-
ropolitan area boasts three quar-
ters of a million people and has
swallowed up Jaffa. Jerusalem and
Haifa have roughly a quarter of a
million each, and the total popula-
tion is about 2,500,000. Rapid
growth is continuing, and the dif-
ficulty of projecting future needs
applies to schools, hospitals, public
transportation and many things
besides the courts.
A part of the population growth
is the national policy of recogniz-
ing a natural right of Jews any-
where in the world to claim Israeli
citizenship merely by coming there
and establishing residence.
The question the Supreme Court
must now decide is: what are the
criteria for being determined a
Jew? The Supreme Court normally
sits in divisions of three judges. A
difficult case may be heard by a
panel of five. In recognition of the
importance of this decision to the
future destiny of the nation and
people, a hearing before nine of
the 10 members of the court has
been ordered for the first time in
the 20-year history of the state,
and arguments were expected to
begin late in 1968. The full court
cannot sit because the Courts Law
of 1957 provides for an uneven
number of justices.
I was told that another factor
which adds to the judicial work
load is the natural litigiousness of
the Israeli people. No figures were
offered to support it, but it was
said that the proportion of settle-
ments before and during trial is
much less than in American courts
and that there are more appeals.
Israel courts, like their Amer-
ican counterparts, are finding that
the addition of more judges is not
in itself a sufficient answer to
court congestion, and that admin-
istrative improvements must be
introduced to make more efficient
use of court facilities and judicial
manpower. Judge Nacht, who be-
came director of courts only a few
months ago, and Jacob Sha-
piro, minister of justice, a promi-
nent member of the Israel bar and
attorney general from 1948 to 1950,
hope to achieve important ad-
vances in that area within the
next year.
Israeli military occupation of
Arab territory west of the Jordan
presents thorny problems in every
area of human life, including the
administration of justice. Under
international law it is the responsi-
bility of occupying authorities to
see to it that essential services,
including the courts, are main-
tained, and most public servants,
postmen, policemen, etc., do con-
tinue their work. The occupying
government assumes the financial
burdens of civil government and
Israel is financing the courts in

those areas. Until the destiny of
the area is determined by a peace
treaty, however, court administra-
tion can be only a holding opera-
tion, and there is no planning for
the future as in Israel proper.
In the West Bank area the job is
further complicated by a shortage
of Arab judges and lawyers. The
judge shortage arises from the fact
that some Arab judges dare not
cooperate with the Israeli govern-
ment for fear of losing their pen-
sion rights from the Jordan gov-
ernment. They might be willing to
do this if they could be assured
that Israeli rule would continue
and that pension rights would be
established there. Except for the
Arab sector of Jerusalem, how-
ever, Israel has not asserted full
sovereignty over West Bank terri-
tory, awaiting peace negotiations
into which the Arabs have so far
been unwilling to enter. Mean-
while, some Arab judges continue
to draw their salaries from the
Jordanian government without do-
ing any work.
One by-product of the Six-Day
War is a greater need for knowl-
edge of the Arabic language by
judges and everybody else in Is-
rael, and I was interested to ob-
serve that in the judges' lounge
in the Tel Aviv courthouse was a
blackboard covered with Arabic
characters. Mr. Matalan, chief
clerk of the district court, ex-
plained that those judges who were
not sufficiently proficient in Arabic,
as many of them are, were study-
ing Arabic there in their spare
time.
One Arab lawyer is sitting as a
judge pro tern in Ramallah, but a
large part of the Arab bar in the
West Bank area is holding back in
protest against the annexation of
East Jerusalem. Immediately after
the Six-Day War, Teddy Kollek,
mayor of Jerusalem, announced
that the city had been reunited and
that the entire city would hence-
forth be and remain under full
Israeli sovereignty. Some Arab
lawyers are contending that East

are administering a high level of
justice to all who come before
them, including both friend and
foe.
Prospects for peace in the Holy
Land did not look bright the morn-
ing I boarded a Rome-bound jet
from the Lod airport near Tel Aviv.
Arabs were still refusing to sit
down at the conference table with
the Israelis, and during my home-
ward journey the Italian and Span-
ish newspapers headlined reports
of threats of an Arab offensive
against Israel at the time of the
Jewish New Year. This govern-
ment-to-government antagonism is
not shared by the Arab and Jewish
people, who live and mingle freely
with each other in Jerusalem and
throughout Israel and Israeli-con-
trolled territory. Arabs with whom
I talked seemed to agree that while
natural patriotism would quite un-
derstandably make them prefer to
live under the Arab flag, they have
no fear of a peace settlement
which would award their land to
Israel, and they would greatly
prefer that to indefinite continua-
tion of the present uncertainty.
Let us hope that the world's

NO TIME FOR GOD

We sweat and we strain
just to please man,
When it comes to the Lord
we've no time.
We worship the things
we can hold in our hand
Instead of the Lord God sublime.
• • •
Richard Palmer

r

Prenatal care can lower the risk
of birth defects resulting from self-
medication or drug abuse which
may be damaging to the fetus
during earliest pregnancy, accord-
ing to the March of Dimes.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
18—Friday, January 17, 1969

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Jerusalem, like the rest of the

West Bank, should be treated as
occupied territory, subject to peace
negotiations, rather than annexed.
A television debate on this isstie
took place while I was there. • "
I discussed this touchy point with
Arab friends and found that they
had no answer when I pointed out
that under Arab rule Jews were
excluded, while under Israeli rule
everyone is admitted and the
sacred shrines of all faiths are
equally respected and protected.
Meanwhile. Israeli lawyers repre
sent Arab litigants both in East
Jerusalem and in the rest of the
West Bank area. Since Aug. 23,
1968, by a law of the Knesset, Arab
judges and lawyers residing in
East Jerusalem have been made
members of the Israeli Chamber
of Advocates without having quali-
fied in Israel law, which is applica-
ble there.
Israel has a heritage of justice
under law second to none. When
most of the naticns of the Western
world were still in savagery, Moses
was handing down the Ten Com-
mandments and uttering pro-
nouncements about the administra-
tion of justice that form a part of
the preamble to our canons of judi-
cial ethics today. Modern Israel
shares with the United States, Can-
ada and the British commonwealth
of nations a heritage of liberty and
justice in the English tradition by
virtue of its having been governed
by the British under a League of
Nations mandate prior to 1948.
My general impression of Israel's
courts and judges is that they are
doing their job in a manner worthy
of that great heritage and tradi-
tion. Confronted with unprecedent-
ed problems and difficulties arising
from the complex legal, racial and
religious systems to be found with-
in their borders, and from a sky-
rocketing population increase, war
conditions, and other factors, the
Israeli courts are meeting these
challenges with confidence and en-
thusiasm, are making progress
against them, and in the meantime

great Judeo-Christian heritage of
brotherly love and the Golden Rule,
typified by thousands of Israeli
Jews and Arab Christians and
Moslems living and working side
by side today in the Holy Land,
may one day bring true peace and
good will to that troubled land and
to all the world.

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