Public trust in legal system result of inefficiency, not 'legal activism'
Yossi Tamar
Published in Ynet on September 14, 2006
The endless words, reports, and interpretations regarding the change at the Supreme Court's helm made us forget that public trust in the Israeli legal system is at an all-time low. The new chief justice, Dorit Beinisch, would do well if. along with working to protect the rule of law, she will also look into what's really going on at lower courts and execution offices responsible for implementing verdicts.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, but in Israel they're having a hard time turning at all. It's no secret courts are finding it difficult to serve their function. Citizens who seek to bring matters for legal debate discover that, even when they're dealing with minor issues, years will pass before a decision is made.
On the tortuous road to justice, the parties get to enjoy the best of Israeli bureaucracy, including extended waiting periods, useless sessions, needless forms, wasted money, and of course, endless lines. Even when a legal matter is decided, it turns out the State does not possess enough tools or power to enforce the decision.
More judges needed
Ordinary citizens who require mediation or legal defense and experience the Israeli legal system view the legal approach as an expensive, ineffective privilege. The sense that the system is not working as it should grows when one becomes familiar with the enforcement mechanisms, such as execution offices.
The same system, which shows apathy in the face of money owed to citizens, turns out to be a wonderfully effective well-oiled machine when it comes to banks seeking to collect debts.
Seemingly, the legal system possesses the basic condition needed for it to be effective and credible: The ratio of lawyers per population in Israel is among the highest in the world, and every year thousands more join the system and produce much work, and also great income, for the system.
However, it appears that while the whole world has moved forward and internalized the significance of service to citizens, the legal system has frozen in place and remained an island of bureaucracy, slowness, and ineffectiveness.
The legal system needs more judges. Currently, judges are sustaining an inhumane burden and are forced to hear dozens of cases and read hundreds of pages every day. The strict work procedures, which include a huge variety of forms, are incommensurate with our current age, while the manpower mechanism is tired, slow, and awkward.
Real problem ignored
The claim that the drastic decline in the public's trust in the courts is a result of controversial verdicts and doctrines on the part of the Supreme Court, in the wake of Israel's "constitutional revolution," is convenient for some elements.
This way, both those who back the "rule of law" displayed by Supreme Court justices and those who criticize them for interfering in government decisions sanctify the eternal argument and consistently ignore the genuine problem, which is the inefficient bureaucratic mechanism of the courts.
In my view, citizens who want the courts to hear their cases and discover the foot-dragging and system weakness lose their trust as a result of this state of affairs, and not because of the "legal activism" and the justice system's interference in Knesset decisions.
The system needs to be shaken up, and now. The number of judges must be boosted significantly, indicators that will determine their quality should be established, and judges who take too long in handing down verdicts should be made to retire.
It would be proper to add recognized and supervised mediation mechanisms that will lead to a decrease in the number of matters submitted to the courts by the public.
In addition, execution offices must be given real powers and the service offered to citizens must be significantly improved.
Previous Supreme Court presidents preferred to ignore the erosion of public trust in the legal system. Regrettably, the lack of faith in the system is so serious at this time that new Chief Justice Beinisch will have to consider the matter. Let's hope she deviates from the path of her predecessors and leads genuine reform in the justice system where ordinary citizens also have their place.
Yossi Tamar is an attorney and economist and managed the constitution project at the Shalem Center
