Opening the judicial year, Jerusalem, September 17, 1992
Chairman of the Knesset,
The Honorable President of the Supreme Court,
The State Comptroller,
Minister of Justice,
As you know, I am not a lawyer. My legal experience is highly limited, but in my public roles, certainly in state roles, as Minister of Defense and as Prime Minister, legal advisors accompany me, on my right and on my left, and I have become accustomed to seeing them as an inseparable part of the landscape of my life and my work. It’s tough for me with them, it’s tough for me without them. I learned in my youth and later from the facts of life about the separation of authorities, and even though we are talking about two worlds, I find much in common between legal professionals and statesmen. The common matter is the policy of the decision maker and the torments of his conscience – like the judges, and a few friends will have to forgive me for the parallelism and the comparison – as statesmen also get information from different channels, sometimes conflicting, highly self-serving, and then digesti the information, consider and reconsider and vacillate, ultimately making a decision. In many cases, for judges and for statesmen, we are talking about a decision that is fateful for a person and his life. There is nothing more difficult than this. Only one whose fate it has been to make such decisions, in that same miserable isolation, can understand us. As a man of the state, I can testify to how difficult it is, how much torment you have to endure, to decide on a military activity, on any action in the state realm that has a benefit for society and a fateful problem for the life of the individual. You, the judges, and we, the decision makers, who are torn between the need to decide about the fate of the individual and the needs of the society and the state, and the framework of the rule of law, can perhaps better understand the statesmen than others.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Sixty-four days ago, the government assumed its position, and it is already amidst the turmoil of action, but the baker does not attest to his dough, and I shall leave you to judge the sides as they are. Nevertheless, I must say: great chances have opened – risks too – in the Middle East, and the government, as per its decision, must take advantage of the immediate period in order to try to seriously examine the possibility of establishing peace between Israel and Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinians in the territories.
Under the current international circumstances and their implications for the Middle East, it is very likely that this is a rare opportunity. It’s likely that if we let it escape us, another will not come in its place for a very long time. We, for our part, are facing difficult and fateful decisions, and in such times, days like these, our first obligation, for all of us, is to scrupulously distinguish between the opportunity and the risk, and to very carefully weigh the degree of risk for achieving the goal and progress in making peace. In the life of the state, there has never been, whether for war or for peace, an option of gaining accomplishments without taking calculated risks. We are a sovereign and democratic state that has a government elected by the people. It has law and it has order, and government decisions leaning on a majority in the Knesset, leaning on a majority of the people, are binding, even if not acceptable to all, as it is impossible to please everyone. The prime minister and the government have to be, first of all, satisfied with themselves, with their commitment, with their conscience.
From the matters of the general public, I will come back to the individual: for years, perhaps generations of years, the heads of state have preferred, perhaps to a justifiable degree, the needs of the state over the needs of the individual person. In other words from mine: in our public there are more than a few suffering from heart attack. I don’t know why or what for, I don’t know how come, but there are more than a few among us for whom the spark of humanity has diminished, the merciful and compassionate Jewish heart. I see too much hard-heartedness, too much quarrel and strife. In recent years we are witness to a phenomenon of growing extremism and intensification in relations between individuals, and too little concern for others. What has happened to us? The Jewish people throughout the generations has been known in all corners of the world as one in which each individual opens his gates – and his heart. Mutual assistance has always been one of our signs of recognition. It is said, “All of Israel is responsible for one another.” To some degree, this is not the case today, and if I were to exaggerate, I would even say that instead of us each being “a human being to a human being – a human being,” it holds for more than a few of us that “a human being to a human being is a wolf.”
What has this got to do with you? The quarrels, strife, and unwillingness to compromise, to find a way, creates mountains of legal suits, at least some of which could have been resolved in other ways. Three hundred judges cannot overcome the waves of cases, and we are expected to find solutions. So, I turn to you, judges and lawyers, for another simple reason, together with teachers, writers, and others – I see you as guides and designers of the appearance of this generation. Your way of expression from the bench and in front of it, your creative thinking in your writings of indictments and defenses, your decisions, verdicts, and sentencing, provide the moral and ethical validation for our lives here, and shape the social norms by which we will live in the future. I would never presume to influence you to be lenient or harsh, to judge or be merciful. My request is simply to see the words and decisions written by you, spoken by you, as part of the forming of the face of this tormented nation.
I know, I know well, how difficult your work is and under what uncomfortable conditions you do your work. At least you should find small comfort in the new Supreme Court building. On this occasion, I would like to wish the President of the Supreme Court, my friend Meir Shamgar, and the supreme court justices, to find a pleasant residence and fine tools, to pour proper content into the home, as they have done until now. I know, I know very well, the extent to which you are inundated by the piles of papers and mountains of files. What can we do? The Jewish people loves to engage in litigation, contend, and argue
I have no promises at hand for improving the current situation in the courts, although I place my trust with both my hands on the Minister of Justice, who as a lawyer who suffered like you from the “agony of justice,” will do everything to remedy the distress and improve the situation.
The government is indeed trying to set a new national agenda, yet “the needs of your people are multiple,” and we have many problems to solve. Nevertheless, I hope we will begin to fix that which requires fixing in the courts in accordance with our capacity. I thank the entire legal system, the courts, the prosecution, the defense, the Bar Association, the legal system – it protects law and order from descending into anarchy. I thank you for your work under difficult conditions, I thank you and wish you a good year, a year of legal justice and truth, and that we see better days.
