About a week ago, a letter of protest was circulated by the deans of the law faculties against the government and its position that the High Court of Justice does not have the authority to intervene in Basic Laws and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to declare that in any case he will abide by the High Court ruling.
The person who refused to sign the letter was the dean of Bar-Ilan Law Faculty, Prof. Michal Alberstein. In a letter to faculty, she explained: "I was not at peace with the proposed wording and did not like its style. I didn't feel that I could propose to fix it in a way that would leave anything out of it, so I offered an alternative – but it was not accepted. It was perceived by the rest as too restrained and unifying."
Tens of thousands of demonstrators at the Kaplan junction in Tel Aviv to protest the legal reform // Photo: Giti Palti
In her letter, she even admitted that she was not satisfied with her signature on the deans' letter circulated months earlier against the judicial reform. "I don't like petitions, I've already said that, and I remembered the previous experience where I wasn't at peace with myself and felt that some kind of strange stylistic camel had been created.
"The statement at the bottom of the document, stating that the opinions are personal and not representative, is misleading at all. First of all, it's not my personal style and opinion. I wouldn't express myself that way. Also, I sign as a dean and not as a private woman, and in my eyes there should be an expression of the diversity within us and my responsibility towards the entire community – a position that the other deans did not share with me." Alberstein explained that in her opinion, the deans should have called for agreements and not added to the social divide.
"Statements that strengthen the status of the judicial system are extremely important." High Court of Justice, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
However, after the letter was circulated, she received protest requests from faculty lecturers for her refusal to sign, and within only three days she folded and announced that she had decided to retract and sign. In another letter she wrote and published, Alberstein explained: "I understood that in the eyes of many faculty members, my refusal, as a representative of the Bar-Ilan Faculty of Law, to join the communiqué may be interpreted for the public reading the declaration and noticing Bar-Ilan University's absence as acceptance of a call for disobedience to Supreme Court rulings or with setting limits on its authority to discuss constitutional questions. I gave more weight to this consideration and to the concern about the visibility of the lack of action."
Alberstein also announced that she would not make an independent decision in the future: "In the coming times, I will try to consult before signing with several faculty members who represent the diversity of the faculty." The dean clarified that although she gave in to the criticism and signed the letter, "I continue to hold my minority opinion statement, which naturally could not have been circulated, and think that statements of the obvious that strengthen the status of the judicial system are extremely important." She concluded: "I'm sorry for everyone who was hurt before or hurt now."
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