The Basic Laws as a Foundation for a Constitution

TThe authors of this volume believe that the time has come to compile Israel's Basic Laws into a single constitutional document. To this end, the laws must be rearranged and made suitable to the requirements of a constitution. That is the goal of this volume.

The authors point out the major lacunae in the Basic Laws in their current formulation that impair their ability to serve as a constitution. A guiding principle adopted by the authors is to adhere to the existing documents as much as possible. Because the task is to rearrange rather than to rewrite, it is seen as primarily technical in nature and not philosophical. Accordingly, the authors were careful to trace the provisions of the laws as formulated by legislators, step by step, without adding anything of their own.

The authors had several objectives in reorganizing the Basic Laws. The first was to separate the constitutional from the non-constitutional, and distinguish between the sections that are appropriate for inclusion in a constitution with normative status and those that should be handled through regular legislation. The second objective was to unify the sections topically and stylistically. The third objective was to make the language appropriate for a constitution. The authors’ fourth and final objective was to turn Israel's Basic Laws into a document with an educational character.