Leaders in Law
Top ten most influential Jewish jurists, arranged alphabetically
President of the Supreme Court (1995-2006), 77, (Lithuania) Israel
“The rule for Yadlin is like the rule for Buzaglo” (implying that all are equal before the law)
Even though Aharon Barak has not held an official role for years, his stamp on th Israeli legal system, and even on the country itself, will remain for dozens more years. Barak, on the strength of his skills and personality alone, shaped Israeli legal theory. As attorney general, he set the standard for equality before the law and for elimination of corruption. Barak formulated the theoretical principles of Israeli constitutional law, and later as Supreme Court justice, he applied them. In a long line of rulings and proceedings, some of which were controversial, Barak essentially wrote a de facto constitution.
Barak is a Holocaust survivor, but he minimized the connection between his experience as a child and his legal doctrine. He espouses judiciary intervention in the decisions of the legislative and executive branches. The judicial activism revolution that he led – which allows judges to interpret the law and in extreme cases to nullify it – unprecedentedly increased the power of the Supreme Court, and the lower courts, as well. Barak was accused more than once of promoting his views inappropriately, including via disqualifications of judicial candidates whose opinions were different than his.
President of the Supreme Court (2006-2012), 71, Israel
“I am apprehensive over the future of the constitutional enterprise”
For three decades, Dorit Beinisch was a dominant figure at the heart of many of the episodes that rocked Israel. In the 1980s, she was active on the Kahan Commission to investigate the events at Sabra and Shatila. She served as the head prosecutor in the case of the Jewish Underground, was among those who uncovered the Bus 300 affair, and she tried atomic spy Mordechai Vanunu.
As the faithful student of Aharon Barak (see above), Beinisch espoused extreme judicial activism. Both as state attorney and while serving on the Supreme Court beginning in 1995, she did not hesitate to take independent, controversial stances.
As state attorney, Beinisch refused to represent the state in a High Court of Justice case against the deportation of 400 Hamas terrorists. She tried Shas Party chairman Aryeh Deri on bribery charges, and she established the standard that ministers put on trial need to step down from the government. Beinisch granted the legal authorization to activate Shin Bet agent Avishai Raviv and in a controversial decision, she approved closing the criminal cases against him. It was no coincidence that her swan song was the invalidation of the
U.S. Supreme Court justice,75, USA
“Regard the Constitution as containing unwavering values that must be applied flexibly to ever-changing circumstances”
Even before being appointed to his current position by Bill Clinton, Stephen Breyer was a central figure in the American legal sphere. The books he wrote as a professor at Harvard dozens of years ago are still used today and are considered influential. Breyer is part of the liberal stream of American law, and he is criticized for that by the more conservative legal figures. He is of the opinion that judges must interpret the Constitution according to the goals of its formulators, and not according to the actual words of the text. In this vein, he espouses stricter weapons laws, among other things. In his book Active Liberty (2005), he maintained that the purpose of judges is to interpret the U.S. Constitution in a way that will increase citizens’ political involvement in democracy.
Former Canadian justice minister and Parliament member, law professor at McGill University, helmed the Canadian Jewish Congress, 73, Canada
U.S. Supreme Court justice, 80, USA
“I am alert to discrimination. I grew up during World War II in a Jewish family. I have memories as a child, even before the war, of being in a car with my parents and passing a place… with a sign out in front that read, ‘No dogs or Jews allowed’”
Right before her approaching retirement, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is expected to be among those who put an end to the traditional institution of marriage. Her 20 years at the top of the judicial hierarchy in the U.S. have left no doubt as to her liberal stance. Therefore, there are all the reasons in the world to assume that she will accept the new petition demanding recognition of same-sex marriage laws.Ginsburg was appointed by Bill Clinton and was the first Jewish woman in the position – an apt description of many of the stations she has held in her life. While she did indeed graduate with honors from Harvard and Columbia, discrimination against woman and Jews has followed her over the years to the point that she had trouble finding a job at the start of her career. After she shattered the glass ceiling, she launched into an impressive career, which unsurprisingly included stubborn struggles against discrimination and racism.Bader Ginsburg’s identity as a Jew is a dominant influence on her worldview. “The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition,” she said following her appointment.
Constitutional Court of South Africa justice (1994-2003), 75, South Africa
“I am sure there is no one in Israel, Jew or non-Jew, who does not want Israel to be a leader in the field of bringing war criminals to justice”
Richard Goldstone gained his international status well before the famous Goldstone Report. During the 1990s, he served as chief prosecutor for the U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunal, alongside his membership in a variety of U.N. committees. Goldstone was born in South Africa, the third generation of Jewish immigrants from England and Lithuania. He attributes his moral-judicial stances to the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. In the past, he mentioned that he drew inspiration from the rulings of Aharon Barak, who he named as one of his “heroes.”Goldstone, who defines himself as Zionist, composed one of the most difficult political and propaganda “publicity terror attacks” against Israel. The fact-finding commission he headed examining Operation Cast Lead in Gaza accused Israel of war crimes and violations of international law. About a year and a half later, Goldstone partially retracted some of the accusations.
U.S. Supreme Court justice, 54, USA
“What my political views or my constitutional views are just doesn’t matter”
Kagan was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in New York and today identifies with the Conservative movement. She has lectured at the University of Chicago and Harvard law schools. At Harvard, she was made a full professor and dean of the law school, becoming the first woman in that role. During that time, she barred U.S. Army recruiters from university facilities because of the military’s policy not to draft declared homosexuals. She supports judicial activism and even called Aharon Barak her “legal hero.” Despite this, Kagan refused to critique Republican president George Bush’s policy on the war against terror. During the Clinton administration, Kagan served as associate White House counsel and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council. In 2009, she was appointed by Barack Obama to be solicitor general at the Supreme Court, again becoming the first woman in a role. In 2010, she was appointed to the Supreme Court and became one of three Jewish justices serving.
Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, 74, USA
“I think privacy is greatly overrated because privacy basically means concealment. People conceal things in order to fool other people about them”
The most-cited legal scholar of the 20th century is considered conservative and to have right-wing opinions, both in the legal field and in economics. One of Professor Richard Posner’s books was dedicated to criticizing the activist and expansionist approaches of Stephen Breyer and Aharon Barak. He referred to the latter as a “pirate judge,” even while maintaining that Barak was deserving of a Nobel Prize.Nonetheless, Posner is known mainly for his original and unpredictable stances. For example, he opposes the prohibition against the use of soft drugs, espouses selling parental rights on the free market, and called for legislation that would impose fees on the use of hyperlinks on the Internet and the use of journalistic paraphrasing. Posner is thought to be one of the fathers of the economic analysis of law, which uses microeconomic tools in order to analyze legal theories. Among other things, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and its British counterpart. Posner has come out against moral philosophy, instead preferring pragmatic considerations.He has encouraged competition between intelligence agencies. Posner also maintains a blog with his partner, Noble Prize winner Gary Becker. A fellow judge called him “the smartest man in the world.”
President of the Supreme Court (1983-1995), 88, Israel
“A democratic regime is built on the continued sharing of information with the public"
Even though nearly two decades have passed since Meir Shamgar concluded his term as president of the Supreme Court, his fingerprints are still recognizable on the Israeli legal climate. Israeli policy in Judea and Samaria, the balance between the three branches of government, various constitutional principles and the conclusions of the committees he headed – they all continue to influence the way Israel conducts itself.
As attorney general, Shamgar wrote the decision that there was no legal sovereignty in Judea and Samaria until 1967. He also established that the Defense Ministry would take responsibility for the area and its inhabitants – principles that have remained in effect until today. During his long, highly influential term as president of the Supreme Court, he laid the foundations for the principles of freedom of expression and journalistic immunity. In one of his canonical rulings, the rape case at Kibbutz Shomrat, Shamgar ruled that a woman does not need to resist sexual relations in order for it to be considered rape; it is enough for her not to give her consent.
Shamgar chaired a number of governmental investigative commissions that looked into the massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the BarOn Hebron Affair, and the Shayetet soldiers who dove into the Kishon.
President of the Court of England and Wales (2005), 80, Britain
“We are sending far too many people to prison”
On Friday nights, Baron Harry Woolf tends to stay at home. He does it for family reasons more than religious ones, but he has never hidden his Jewish identity and it never got in his way en route to the legal apex of the United Kingdom. Woolf is a member of the Privy Council and a fellow of the British Academy. He was Master of Rolls and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 2000 to 2005.
Throughout his long years of activity, Woolf consistently raised the problem of crowding in Britain’s prisons, and a report he submitted to the British government led to a reform in the prison system. He maintained that first-time burglars who used no violence should be treated more leniently – which brought public censure. Woolf does not hesitate to levy piercing criticism against British government policy. On he other hand, he encourages conflict resolution through negotiations, and some view that as a defect.
