The purpose of this Article is to critically analyze and examine positive Israeli copyright law under the paradigm of law and economics. The Article reviews several central and influential decisions of Israeli Supreme Court in the area of copyright law. It then analyzes these decisions in a manner that critically evaluates the reflections and impacts of the law and economics school on positive Israeli copyright law. Within this framework, the Article focuses on a selected number of cases and topics, including the Israeli Supreme Court's interpretation and application of the originality requirement and the fair use exemption. As the discussion in the Article indicates, several important decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court have indeed applied, either explicitly or implicitly, utilitarian considerations while implementing economic analysis as a focal of Israeli copyright law. One interesting observation that arises from our survey is that at least in some cases, there is no correlation between a declaratory judicial implementation of economic considerations and the desirability of the court's decision in terms of its efficiency. In several cases, while the Supreme Court applied economic considerations as its proclaimed normative compass, the outcomes of the court's decisions seem inefficient; whereas in other cases in which courts applied non-economic theories as their corner stone (while neglecting emphasis on economic considerations) the results were found to be economically efficient.

In 1929, Hans Kelsen published a relatively slim book named On the Essence and Value of Democracy. Surprisingly, only a few segments of it were translated into English. One of the underlying theories elaborated by Kelsen is the need for political parties. Kelsen outlines the main justifications for the existence of political parties as derived from the concepts of liberty, equality, and representation. He concludes that political parties are essential for a modern democracy, and thus the modern state should be a party-state (parteienstaat). The goal of this Article is to outline Kelsen's theory on political parties and understand its historical and theoretical background. Furthermore, it strives to evaluate the relevance of Kelsen's theory on political parties nowadays. Kelsen's work is confronted thus with different parties malfunctioning such as non democratic and self interested parties. Reviewing Kelsen's work, there are also doubts about the proper constitutional status of political parties. Furthermore, there are some interesting possible observations regarding Kelsen's suggestion to recall a representative who shows disloyalty to the party line. This Article will demonstrate that Kelsen's work on political parties was not only innovative, but that it is also relevant to any modern debate about the constitutional status of political parties.

Should the process by which laws are enacted affect their legislative validity? This Article attempts to provide a justification for judicial review of the legislative process and suggests that the court should encourage legislative due process. Lawmaking means responsible lawmaking, and the court should thus be able to ensure a minimal due process of lawmaking by reviewing the legislative process. To date the Israeli Supreme Court has refrained from judicial review of Knesset legislation by virtue of flaws in the legislative process. Recently however, Supreme Court judgments seem to have endorsed a form of judicial review of the legislative process, at least de jure. This Article presents the theoretical and comparative frameworks for judicial review of the legislative process and scrutinizes the law in those countries that conduct judicial review of procedurally defective laws together with an examination of the particular features of the rules governing such review. In comparative law, the characteristics of judicial review of the legislative procedures are similar to those manifested in the question of judicial review of legislation, and based on the same premises. In Israel as well, judicial review of legislation is based on the existence of a supreme constitutional norm, of basic rights and fundamental principles. The Article concludes by proposing that the main characteristics of judicial review: constitutionality, proportionality, and restraint should dictate the relationship between the Supreme Court and the Parliament in all aspects of judicial review.

What is corporate bankruptcy law's unique function in the economy? Law and economics scholars reject using it to achieve purely redistributive purposes but this is where their agreement ends. Thus, two questions serve as focal points for debate: First, should the decision on how to redeploy in the economy the assets of the financially distressed firm be mandatory or enabling? Second, which decision-making mechanism should be employed by lawmakers? “First order” theories (arguing for and against a mandatory bankruptcy regime), or “second order” theories (arguing for and against different methods of mandatory decision-making) ensued as a result. Unfortunately, “third order” attempts to supply a convincing answer to the economic question—combining as part of the answer the many redistributive impulses displayed in any corporate bankruptcy setting—were few and scarce. Moreover, scholars have been arguing with each other without fully exhausting the discussion of the gap dividing them. An ex-ante point of view, highlighting the perspective of the debtor-firm's relations with its consensual investors, was offered to lawmakers contemplating social wealth maximization, as a replacement to the conventional ex-post point of view, which emphasizes a more general societal perspective. The distinction between the two paradigms did not go unnoticed by scholars, but unexplainably, it failed to become the center of debate.