ABSTRACT
The protection of human rights in Israeli private law has to be understood in the context of the broader framework of Israeli constitutional law and it’s unique history. When the State of Israel was established, the first elected Parliament (the Knesset) was expected to adopt a written Constitution for the new state. It soon became apparent that the required consensus could not be reached. The ideological rifts and gaps were unbridgeable. It was therefore decided that Israel’s Constitution should be written in piecemeal manner, chapter by chapter. The enactment of these chapters, entitled ‘Basic Laws’, was deferred to future times. By the dawn of the 1990s, ten basic laws had been enacted. Yet, these dealt with the structure and powers of governmental institutions such as the Knesset, the government and the courts. None of these actually dealt with human rights and freedoms.
