Israel Prize for Professor Ruth Gavison

by Maayana Miskin

Professor Ruth Gavison will receive the Israel Prize for legal research. The committee that selected candidates for the prize said in its verdict that Gavison's research “investigates the heart of constitutional law in Israel, and tackles the question of Israel's identity as a Jewish and democratic state with depth and courage.”

Her work “paves the way for religious and secular Jews, and Jews and non-Jews, to co-exist in the state of Israel.”

Gavison was born in Jerusalem. She studied in Hebrew University and later in the University of Oxford. She has researched several legal issues, including human rights, minority rights, and ethnic conflict.

Gavison was nominated for a position on the Supreme Court in 2005, but failed to win majority support for her appointment. Then Chief Justice Aharon Barak opposed Gavison due to her disapproval of his "judicial activism," accusing her of “opposing everything that a court is supposed to do.”

Dr. Yitzchak Klein explained at the time that Gavison “believes that it's not the role of the court to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the elected branches of government.”

Gavison went on to serve on the Winograd Committee, which was tasked with investigating mistakes made in the Second Lebanon War. While on the committee she clashed with Supreme Court justices, threatening to resign if the court forced the publication of censored testimony.

In 2009, she addressed the Facing Tomorrow conference regarding rifts in Israeli society, and those who undermine its national interests.

In a more recent controversial decision, Gavison spoke out in defense of rabbis who told their followers not to sell homes to Arabs in the land of Israel. Rabbis have the right to free speech like any other citizen, Gavison said.


(IsraelNationalNews.com)