Proportionality in Public Policy

The principle of proportionality is one of the fundamental constitutional principles of the Israeli legal system. The legal premise in Israel is that constitutional rights are relative and can be limited in certain situations. Proportionality sets the framework for determining the permissibility of limiting rights, thus settling dilemmas between the promoting of public interests and the protection of human rights.

What makes IDI's Proportionality in Public Policy Program unique is its focus on the perspective of policymakers, and the empirical examination of the integration of rights considerations in the process of drafting policy in the first place. The guiding assumption is that more effectively factoring in proportionality in the policy-making stage will increase the level of awareness and protection of human rights, improve policy results, and decrease the need for involvement of the courts.

The Proportionality in Public Policy Program is a cross-disciplinary and international project. Research is conducted on legal, policy and behavioral axes.

IDI's Proportionality in Public Policy project is supported by a five-year grant awarded to Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer by The European Research Council.

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    Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer

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    Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer is a Senior Fellow at IDI and he previously served as the Institute's Vice President of Research.

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    Prof. Yuval Feldman

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    Dr. Talya Steiner

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    Former Project Manager and Researcher, Proportionality in Public Policy Program

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    Marina Motsenok

    Researcher

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    Former Research Assistant, Proportionality in Public Policy Program

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    Dr. Liat Netzer

    Researcher

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    Former Researcher, Proportionality in Public Policy Program

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    Prof. Ilana Ritov

    Consultant

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    Former Consultant, Proportionality in Public Policy Program

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    Andrej Lang

    Researcher

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    Former Researcher, Proportionality in Public Policy Program

Journal: Behavioural Public Policy (Forthcoming, 2020).

 

Journal: European Journal of International Law (Forthcoming, 2020)

This article focuses on the overlap and interaction between the doctrine of proportionality and other doctrines used to assess the constitutionality of state violations of the right to equality

In this paper, we present the first integrative discussion of policy analysis and legal proportionality in order to specify a method of meaningful integration of the proportionality requirements into policy analysis.

Six countries – Canada, Germany, India, Israel, Poland and South Africa – are paradigm examples of modern constitutional systems where rights may be limited through the application
of a constitutional limitations clause. In each jurisdiction, the constitutionality of a rights limitation has come to rely on the principle of proportionality, and the key exercise in judicially reviewing a rights limitation is the proportionality analysis.

Attorney Talya Steiner warns that a Supreme Court's judgment that struck down an amendment of Israel's anti-infiltration law as unconstitutional points to significant flaws in Israel's process of policy-making.