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Alternative Pluralisms: Israeli and American Constitutionalism in Comparative Perspective
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
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Constitutional transplantation, the process by which the constitutional practice of one society becomes an important source for the legal development of another, has figured importantly in the institutional evolution of new politics. In this article, I examine the constitutional experience of Israel and the United States, two societies that share a language of jurisprudential discourse while differing significantly in a number of polically relevant ways. In particular, the fact that both societies can be described as pluralistic only conceals the fact that they represent alternative models of pluralism that may render problematic the the transferablity of constitutional outcomes from one place to another. Thus, the literature of modern constitutionalism, which has tended to emphasize the rights-based liberal ethic of individualism, is arguably more compatible with an American model in which the principles of the “procedural republic” are more unproblematically embraced. To pursue this question, I look at two issues—the advisability of adopting a bill of rights and the appropriate stance of the regime on the question of free speech—that allow us to reflect upon the limits and possibilities of constitutional transplantation.
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References
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74. I am grateful to Sanford V. Levinson for originally suggesting this point to me.
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84. Ibid., p. 104.
85. Ibid., p. 105.
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92. 403 US. 15 (1971).
93. See in particular, Downs, Donald Alexander, Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community, and the First Amendment (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985).Google Scholar Downs argues: “The extension of Cohen's logic to move severe cases of verbal assault could harm the basic communitarian norms of civility and protection which also legitimate values of the polity” (p. 11). Downs sympathizes with the survivors in Skokie, who had “asked the courts to heed the claims of substantive justice in the case rather than limiting their legal considerations to the issue of procedural justice, or equal protection in the public forum” (p. 5).
94. For a good example of the First Amendment position extending from the logic of this theory of liberal constitutionalism see Karst, Kenneth L., “Equality As a Central Principle in the First Amendment,” University of Chicago Law Review 43 (1975): 20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Karst's theory is applicable to the controversy over Meir Kahane's presence on the ballot. “If the first amendment principle of equal liberty underlies the right to vote, then it unquestionably underlies the rights of those seeking a place on the election ballot, the supreme political forum” (p. 59).
95. For an insightful comparison of American and West German approaches to the issue of defamation see Kommers, Donald P., “The Jurisprudence of Free Speech In the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany,” Southern California Law Review 53 (1980): 657.Google Scholar Kommers finds that “the pluralism [envisioned by the US. Supreme Court to be] less integral than that envisioned [by the German Court].” As a result, “In the American view [as contrasted with the German], the community has no valid claim upon the individual person, particularly in the domain of mind and morals” (p. 694).
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100. The issue of transplantation is also relevant in the field of legal education. “The American experience can indeed be very enriching and extremely stimulating. But one must never lose sight of the important differences that exist between these two countries which lead to necessary differences in legal education” (Weisman, Joshua, “The Relevance of the American Experience to Legal Education in Israel,” Tel Aviv University Studies in Law 5 [1980–1982]: 55).Google Scholar
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