Rights
Basic Laws in place of a single written constitution
Israel has no single constitutional document. A series of Basic Laws, enacted since 1958, perform constitutional functions, and since the 1995 Bank Mizrahi decision the Supreme Court has asserted the power to review ordinary legislation for compatibility with the Basic Laws on human rights.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — The State of Israel. Different legal regimes apply in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem and the Golan are subject to Israeli law under legislation whose international status is disputed.
Governing law
- Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty1992
- Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation1994
- Basic Law: The Judiciary1984
- Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People2018
In practice
The constitutional position is genuinely unusual. The 1950 Harari Resolution deferred a full constitution in favour of chapter-by-chapter Basic Laws, and the project remains incomplete. The 1992 Basic Laws on Human Dignity and Liberty and on Freedom of Occupation contain limitation clauses, and in Bank Mizrahi the Supreme Court held that these gave the Basic Laws superior status and grounded judicial review of Knesset legislation. That power has been the centre of sustained political contention, including the 2023 attempt to restrict it, and the Court struck down an amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary in January 2024. The High Court of Justice, the Supreme Court sitting in its first-instance administrative capacity, is the forum for constitutional and administrative challenge.