One of the events marking the legal development of this country which has taken place since the first International Congress of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, is the coming into being of a new system of Courts—the Labour Courts. Israel thus joined the ever increasing number of states having a special judiciary to adjudicate in matters of labour.

The Law establishing the Labour Courts came into operation on September 1, 1969, exactly four years ago. This period is too short for a sound evaluation and because of my position, I am to some extent, disqualified from evaluating results and achievements, even in as far as already warranted by experience.

Being fully aware of these limitations, in this address I will try to present this new component of the Judiciary of Israel, and to outline the place of the Labour Courts in the Legal and Labour Relations Systems of Israel.

Before dealing with the Labour Courts, their composition and jurisdiction, it would, I believe be proper to make some remarks on the labour relations system of Israel, and to comment on some basic features of our labour law. This has to be done, since the Labour Courts, although institutionally and constitutionally part of the Judiciary, are an integral component of the labour relations system, just as the Judiciary as a whole is an integral component of the socio-economic and political system of any state.

A few days after the State of Israel was established in 1948 a law was passed by the Provisional Council of State which enacted, that the law in force in Palestine on the eve of the creation of the new State should remain in force in Israel, with such modification as the establishment of the State and its organs rendered necessary, until varied or revoked by the legislative organs of the State.

That meant, in effect, that as far as Criminal Law and Procedure were concerned, the rules of English law were retained by the State of Israel.

The substantive criminal law, the Criminal Code Ordinance, as enacted by the British Mandatory Administration for Palestine, is still in force in Israel, except for those parts that have been repealed or amended by the Israel legislature. This Ordinance was enacted in 1936 and constitutes an attempt to codify the English Common law. Similar laws were passed by the British Colonial Administrations in Sudan (1924) and in Cyprus (1929).

Under one of the provisions of this Ordinance, the Code and the expressions used in it have to be interpreted and construed in accordance with the rules of English law and interpretation.

It is difficult to compress within thirty minutes or so, a talk on the general part of the criminal law in Israel, its sources, development, present status and future projection. The very nature of the topic, the wealth of detail connected with issues of criminal responsibility, the multitude of theories and controversial approaches, prevents this, particularly when bearing in mind that in such a talk one purports to cover a period of twenty-five years of dynamic development with a law operating in a changing society, in an emerging State in a world in flux.

I shall thus merely attempt to outline some of the salient features of legislation and precedent in the field of criminal responsibility, employing broad generalizations, and perhaps glean in some detail certain opinions—touching variously upon the responsibility issue—which appear to be in the nature of landmark decisions, introducing a new trend in the development of the law.

The problem of the Jews in the Soviet Union is one of the most important issues that dominates our life today. It is not my intention to deal with the numerous aspects of this problem nor to describe the history of the struggle of Soviet Jewry. I shall deal only with some of the legal considerations concerning this issue and more specifically with four of them:

1. Is Israel entitled, from the point of view of International Law, to raise the issue of Soviet Jews in International Organizations in general? Is it not a violation of the Charter of the U.N. and an intervention in the domestic affairs of a Sovereign State?

2. Does public protest help in the defence of the rights of the Jews in the Soviet Union?

3. Does the Soviet Union violate Soviet law or any international obligation in discriminating against Soviet Jews?

4. According to International Law, is Israel entitled to grant Israeli nationality to Jews living in the Soviet Union?