Chief Justice Beinisch’s Ultimate Assault against Israeli Democracy and Rule of Law
By steven plaut
Dorit Beinisch was the Chief Justice of Israel’s Supreme Court until retiring recently. While already retired, she is still writing verdicts for some cases that began while she was on the bench.
Beinisch was the worst Israeli practitioner of the anti-democratic doctrine of “judicial activism,” which holds that court judges can just make up laws and “right” as they go along and that unelected judges should have the right to veto and dictate laws against the will of the elected representatives of the people. In other words, judicial activism is judicial tyranny.
Yesterday Beinisch and two other judges issued what is without a doubt one of the very WORST court rulings in Israeli history, and for that matter one of the worst in the history of the democratic world.
The ruling is based on illiteracy and ignorance. But even worse, for all intents and purposes it overrides the fundamental principle of all democracies that one is innocent until proven guilty. Beinisch’s latest venture into judicial activism is to reverse that principle when it comes to women claiming to be victims of discrimination. Henceforth in Israel employers will be presumed guilty unless they can prove that they are innocent whenever any woman can be found who drew a salary less than any man.
This act of sabotage of Israeli democracy was triggered by a suit
in which a woman claimed she was underpaid due to the fact that she
was a woman. Under Beinisch’s new “law,” employers will be presumed
guilty of discrimination whenever a woman employee claims she was paid
less than a male employee. It does not matter WHY she was paid less.
And the woman does not even have to prove she suffered any damages
from the discrimination she alleges took place.
So a panel of three judges who have probably never taken an
economics course in their entire lives presume to pontificate about
what the causes and sources of pay disparities are in the labor
marketplace. Their position is clearly that each and every wage
disparity must be presumed to be a reflection of discrimination unless
it can be proven otherwise. And proving otherwise is an extremely
complicated and burdensome affair.
Consider the following: it has been established statistically
that fat people on average earn less than thin people. Under the
Beinisch rules the simple fact of such a disparity must be presumed to
be a reflection of discrimination against fat people. But there is no
reason at all to think this is the case, and at least a thousand
alternative explanations for why such a gap in wages exists, having
nothing at all to do with discrimination. Fat people may be less
healthy on average than thin people, may suffer more injuries, may be
unable to perform certain job functions (such as climbing telephone
polls). In addition fat people may be characterized more often by
certain personality characteristics than are thin people. They may
have less self-discipline, less ability to delay gratification, less
perseverance. Certainly less energy. They also may have less
interest in certain types of education or jobs compared with what
appeals to thin people. If ANY of these many reasons explains the gap
in wages, discrimination has been ruled out.
But notice the difficulty. It is not a trivial matter to prove
in a statistical or legal way which of the reasons explains the
fat-thin pay gap. Ordinarily, the burden of proof for any fat person
claiming that the reason for a lower pay is discrimination against fat
folk would be on the plaintiff, who would have to provide persuasive
evidence that the other 1000 conceivable factors and reasons are not
the actual cause.
And the exact same problem exists for pay disparities between
the tall and the short (which also exist), or male-female, or
Jewish-Arab, or Ashkenazi-Sephardi, or young-old pay disparities. The
truth is that in many cases it is not clear at all what precisely
produces a specific pay disparity. My wife is a university faculty
member like me and makes more money than I do. Under the Beinisch
rule this proves I am a victim of discrimination and I can sue the
university. (She would insist that the REAL reason is that she is
simply smarter than me, which is why it is just and proper that I have
to do all the hoovering in the house.) I have not done sued – I
prefer the legal redress solution of helping my Missus spend all the
extra wampum.
I have never in my life met a student who believes he got the
grade he deserved, and I have never met a person who gets the salary
he thinks he deserves. Since everyone thinks they have been cheated
and shortchanged by the universe in some way, everyone has a
grievance. Courts that operate based on common sense do not make
judgments based on complaints and feelings of people. Plaintiffs have
to prove their claims with hard evidence.
But not in the post-Beinisch version of Israel’s Brave New World.
Every feeling of resentment and sense of having been shortchanged will
be presumed to be objectively valid and reflecting discrimination.
Equality patrols and a Soviet-like wage boards of bureaucrats will
intervene and dictate to every single employer in the country what
wage should be paid to which employee. Employers will have to spend
the bulk of their resources fighting off the Equality Patrols and
producing proof that they have NOT discriminated, leaving them with
little time to do things like produce goods and services.
Israel’s feminists are beside themselves with glee at all this.
Part of the irony here is that the immediate defense tactic of many
employers will be to desist from hiring women altogether, to avoid
comparisons of male and female pay, in order to save themselves from
being harassed by the Equality Terrorists.
But the more serious and long-lasting damage is that in her last
gasps as a judge, Madame Beinisch is underlying the basic principles
of judicial democracy in Israel. Here is a dangerous precedent that
regards you and me as guilty unless we can provide overwhelming
econometric evidence and scientific analysis showing that we are
innocent.
@ yamit82:
I resigned from the Central Committee and the LIKUD about six months ago.
As a veteran in the LIKUD I was in the know about some of the plans either joined by or made by Netanyahu. Not for a moment I bought Netanyahu’s US “speecherisms”.
You recall of course what happened to several true Eretz Israel personalities which were candidates to be in the party list. Dr. Landau left the LIKUD much earlier and of course did so because he also knew.
Who will lead the palace revolt? No one within the echelons there is unaware and no one will do a thing to prevent mega disengagement if the orders come from Washington.
@ SHmuel HaLevi:
Who will lead a Likud Palace revolt?
SHmuel HaLevi Said:
Netanyahu or Nachash-ra-hu (he’s a bad snake) is just as leftist as Beinisch and has blocked any judicial reform which will end the self appointing of judges by the judicial. Aharon Barak, Beinisch’s predecessor appointed her and both appointed other radical judges during their tenure who undermine Judaism and freedom while siding with the Arabs. Israel needs freedom from the judicial tyranny and the Knesset itself and the power grabbing Pipi Nachash-ra-hu.
@ yamit82:
The Knesset must pass legislation voiding those decisions.
But it will not as Netanyahu will block any such legislation.
Those folk must be set aside otherwise they will destroy everything.
@ Stanley J. revich:
Stanley J. revich Said:
How right you are.
LOOK WHO PUT HER IN OFFICE IN THE FIRST PLACE THE REST OF ISRAEL GOVERMNT AS CORRUPT
A suit in which a woman claimed she was underpaid due to the fact that she was a woman. Under Beinisch’s new “law,” employers will be presumed guilty of discrimination whenever a woman employee claims she was paid less than a male employee. It does not matter WHY she was paid less. Moreover, the woman does not even have to prove she suffered any damages from the discrimination she alleges took place.
Female attorneys filed charges against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2007, saying the Port Authority had discriminated against 14 female lawyers by paying them less than their male counterparts who performed similar jobs.
On 5/18/2012, a U.S. District Judge in Manhattan dismissed this case, ruling that though the plaintiffs demonstrated they had similar job titles as their male coworkers, they failed to show that the actual job requirements and performance were the same.
This American ruling clearly shows how Beinisch deviates from Western norms.
Beneisch is not an isolated sickness. She is a symptom of the widespread sickness that is found in too many Jews that allows such criminal active to exist. When Arabs feel insulted they immediately riot and often get they way. When Jews are insulted many will deny anything is wrong and will prefer to bow their heads in defeat. But let any one Jew stand up for Jewish rights and the leftist Jews will promptly attack him while the Jewish masses will idly stand by.
The theme of the French Revolution was “Liberte, Egalite. Fraternite”. For the Left only the concept of “Egalite” resonates. They want a world where everyone is equally poor. equally miserable, equally deprived. There will be only one exception in their world — the “intelligentsia” who make the decisions, who rule the suffocation bureaucracy, who live off the sweat of undeserving poor. The Left, in other words, is essentially fascist in temperament and in behaviour. For those born to lead Liberty and Brotherhood are mere unimportant asterisks in the conduct of our lives. Only Equality will make us free.
@ yamit82:
“The Knesset can pass legislation nullifying the courts decision.”
The Knesset SHOULD pass legislation nullifying the courts decision.
The Knesset can pass legislation nullifying the courts decision.
The left is a very destructive force in western societies.