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Aharon Barak (Hebrew: אהרן ברק) (born September 16, 1936) is a professor of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 until the middle of 2006. He was smuggled out of the Kovno Ghetto in a suitcase as a child and hidden by a Lithuanian farmer. He immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1947.
Barak is well-known for championing a proactive judiciary that has interpreted Israel's basic law as its constitution and challenged Knesset laws on that basis. Under his term the Supreme Court has issued controversial decisions on the nature of the state and the ability of both the Knesset and the Prime Minister to implement their decisions. Barak announced his retirement at the end of May 2006 leaving the Israeli Supreme Court a far different place.
In 2006, he published "The Judge in a Democracy". An examination of his judicial philosophy, in which he describes the role of a judge, beyond dispute resolution, is to connect law with society and to protect the constitution and democracy. He also espouses the role of purposive interpretation to reading constitutional texts.
External links
- Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs biography
- The Judge in a Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2006)
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