Israel’s Constitutional Crisis CANCELED

UPDATE: In light of the recent events, Prof Cohen-Eliya will also address the current war situation and its relationship to the constitutional crisis.

Israel is in the midst of its most severe constitutional crisis since its inception: Is the legal reform led by the Israeli government a first step towards autocratic rule like in Hungary or Poland, or is it a democratic attempt here to balance some of the massive powers transferred to the Supreme Court from the representative institutions that took place following Aharon Barak’s “constitutional revolution”? In his talk, Moshe Cohen Eliya will trace the sociological roots of the constitutional crisis in Israel. Following Ran Hirschl’s book “Toward a Juristocracy” (2000), Cohen Eliya will outline the massive transfer of power to the Supreme Court in Israel from the representative institutions and its reasons. He will situate the current internal struggle in Israel within the broader global struggle between liberals and conservatives to control the state institutions, yet he will caution against a non-contextual approach to the migration of constitutional ideas.

Prof. Cohen Eliya is an expert in comparative constitutional law, the former president of the College of Law and Business in Israel, and the founder of the Israeli chapter of I-CONS (The International Society of Public Law). He is currently a Beatric Webb visiting professor at the LSE Law School. Since the beginning of the current crisis, he has been involved in attempts to resolve it through the institutionalization of a liberal democratic constitutional framework and the re-establishment of the Constituent Assembly, in order to complete the constitutional enterprise in Israel.