Democracy and Judicial Autonomy in Israel's Early Years

The article investigates the question of judicial autonomy in the State of Israel during the first five years of independence. It examines to what extent the government and the Knesset were involved in the procedure of appointing Supreme Court judges, and then discusses the involvement of these authorities in the courts' ongoing work. An examination of the full range of evidence from the period leads to the conclusion that, since the establishment of Israel, there were no unsuitable attempts to influence judges to issue unfair rulings or to restrict their autonomy in other ways. The mistaken notion that judges in the early years of Israel were not respected or appreciated and that their autonomy was in practice flawed should therefore be abandoned, acknowledging the efforts of the first Israelis to reconcile the complex principles of democracy and the rule of law.