Israel: Privitisation of Prisons Unconstitutional

[ Middle East News Service Comments: Could something really important happen in Israel without the rest of the world noticing? Intuitively it does not make sense. Israel probably receives more media attention per capita than any other country on the planet, with the possible exception of the Vatican. And besides with dozens of websites set up to highlight the country’s good features and at least as many set up to denigrate it, how can anything be missed? But something important did happen but there is a reason for the silence of the aligned media.

What happened was that the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the very principle of privatising prisons is unconstitutional. It is a landmark ruling against privatisation the court’s President Dorit Beinisch and her colleagues argued that the obligation to deal with human rights is the state’s responsibility and cannot be privatised. As senior Haaretz reporter Avirama Golan points out, this ruling will doubtless generate a conceptual revolution worldwide. Beinisch (and most Hebrew commentators suggests that her personal imprimatur is unmistakeable) based her argument on the universalist principles of human rights and liberal philosophy. There is nothing uniquely Israeli about it. Nor did she rely on the principles of Jewish Law.

You can see the aligned media’s dilemma. The pro-Israeli side is lined up with the forces of the political Right who are horrified at the world-wide implication of the ruling. You can’t imagine hearing the US Republican National Committee praising Israel for its democracy on this count. On the Left side of politics that should rejoice at the principles established, Israel is an unmentionable. How can they praise a Supreme Court whom they accuse with some justification of regularly ignoring the same principles of human rights when the issue of “security” is raised, particularly when the issues concern the Occupied Territories?

Perhaps it is time for groups like Ameinu and Meretz outside Israel to highlight this matter – Sol Salbe.]

The bombshell dropped by the High Court of Justice yesterday is hidden in one of the ruling's final pages. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch wrote that so far, no American, British or New Zealand court has had to rule on whether privatizing prisons is unconstitutional. But many experts, she noted, have argued that if this question did arise in Europe, it would be rejected out of hand as contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Thus four years after the petition was filed and about a year after the concessionaire finished building the first private prison - where 2,000 prisoners were slated to be sent - Israel's High Court has effected a revolution: It ruled in firm, unequivocal language that the problem is not the nature of the prison or the concessionaire. Rather, it said, the very principle of privatizing prisons is unconstitutional.

The High Court stressed that it was not intervening in the relations between the state and the concessionaire, who hastened to demand massive compensation. Instead, it addressed other aspects of the issue.

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View the rest of the article here: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1129514.html

[The independent Middle East News Service concentrates on providing alternative information chiefly from Israeli sources. It is sponsored by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the AJDS. These are expressed in its own statements]

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