FROM JUDICIAL RESTRAINT TO JUDICIAL ACTIVISM

This chapter discusses the rise of judicial activism in the jurisprudence of the Israeli Supreme Court during the 1980s and 1990s. Many scholars claim that the Court could be said to have been extremely activist. The Court dramatically expanded the scope of its standing doctrine. It drastically reduced the scope of issues considered non-justiciable. It made ‘the reasonableness test’ its main tool for reviewing the actions of the government and the state's public administration. It developed ‘the proportionality test’ as an additional new test to be applied in its review of administrative decisions. And in what may be regarded as the pinnacle of its activism, the Court held in 1995 that it is authorized to annul Knesset legislation if it finds it to contradict the provisions of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation enacted in 1992.