A history of the administration of courts in Israel

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents the history of the administration of courts in Israel, from 1948 to circa 1995, unearthing a series of tensions that undergirded the management of Israeli courts throughout their history. It illustrates that judiciary-executive tensions, as well as intra-judiciary and other extra-judiciary tensions, informed the trajectory of Israeli court administration. Furthermore, the article singles out two outstanding figures in the history of the Israeli judiciary, chief justices Yitzhak Olshan and Meir Shamgar, whose lesser-known preoccupation with the administration of courts – alongside the work of even lesser-known Israeli jurists who “managed” Israeli courts for decades – is revealed in the article.