A riddle. What is the most classified and guarded institution
in the country? A hint: We aren't talking about the atomic
reactor in Dimona, nor about the IDF operations room at
headquarters in Tel Aviv nor the petroleum stores in Glilot
Junction.
We are talking about the Committee for the Election of
Judges. That committee is the most classified body in the
entire country. The President of the High Court, Aharon
Barak, guards the minutes of the committee meetings, and the
reports of all their deliberations with utmost care.
Only excerpts of these minutes such as those on the
differences of opinion between the Justice Minister Yossi
Beilin and Barak on various issues are publicly released.
Precisely now, it is worthwhile to raise the forthcoming
issue, which is somehow linked to the discussion of the
committee and the decisions it makes.
For a long time, judicial circles have been raising eyebrows
over the meteoric rise of Justice Elisheva Barak. Licensed as
a lawyer not so early in her life, she was appointed a
District Labor Court judge, and will now be promoted to the
senior position of Deputy Chief judge of the National Labor
Court.
As is known, the Supreme Court, in its function as a High
Court, also functions as a court of appeals for the rulings
of the National Labor Court.
"It is inconceivable that the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court should be the primary deciding factor who directly or
indirectly approves his wife's rulings," legal experts
claim.
Recently, the National Labor Court issued a revolutionary
ruling to which Mrs. Barak was a partner. The ruling
determined that a clause in a work contract forbidding a
worker from competing with his employer after he has stopped
working for him, has no validity.
This ruling, which deviates from all the norms of the
previous ruling, and the constraining laws of the High Court
was sharply criticized by employers and legal academics.
In an article in Globes the retired National Labor
court chief justice Menachem Goldberg sharply criticized this
ruling, noting that it contradicts the existing rulings of
the High Court. Goldberg said that he presumes that this
ruling will change when it reaches the High Court for a
critical analysis.
However, a well known legal expert who examined the ruling of
the National Labor Court noted, in closed circles, that there
is little possibility that Goldberg's hope will materialize.
She said that there is no doubt that a ruling made in the
National Labor Court, where Mrs. Barak is a judge, will be
approved by the High Court. This is because the President of
the High Court is Aharon Barak, and it is he who determines
the composition of judges who deliberate on the cases that
reach the Supreme Court.
Indeed, a ruling of the High Court, recently issued by Aharon
Barak, has on principle approved the law determined by the
ruling given by Mrs. Barak in the National Labor Court.
To the question of the Globe's correspondent, as to
whether Barak thinks that he should refrain from deliberating
on issues in which his wife is one of the formulators of the
ruling, he replied, by means of the court spokesman, with one
word: "No."
The so called "democratic and enlightened" public regards
Barak as the ultimate in honesty and decency. Has he behaved
that way this time? Does he behave that way in similar
instances?
Imagine a case in which a dayan in the Beis Din
Hagodol in Jerusalem approves a ruling that his son or
brother gave in a district Rabbinical court. Would it receive
Barak's seal of approval? Only the Baraks know for sure.
