Purposive Theory - Israel

Israel

Israel's legal community is largely purposivist in nature and has rejected such methods of interpretation as narrow textualism and static historicism. The term 'purposive interpretation' began to appear in Israel at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s.

Israel's best-known supporter of purposivism is jurist Aharon Barak. His particular form of puposivism includes a synthesis of subjective elements, such as author's intent, with objective elements, such as textual evidence. Barak believes the text to be the source of purpose but is ready to go beyond the text in some circumstances to examine the subjective purposes of the text's author. Barak believes intentionalism is too limited in its assessment of subjectivity.

"On a number of occasions, Justice Barak of the Israeli Supreme Court has remarked that, in the enactment of its new Basic Laws on human rights, Israel walks in the path of the Canadian Charter of RIghts and Freedoms." Barak has encouraged Israel's judiciary to make reference to the Canadian Supreme Court's purposive approach to Charter rights and its rights-forwarding orientation. Barak has not only written in support of purposive interpretation but also applied it while serving as a Justice to the Supreme Court of Israel. In CA 165/82 Kibbutz Hatzor v Assessing Officer, 39(2) P.D 70, his judgment was seen as a turning point in the interpretation of tax law in Israel, establishing that a purposive approach was generally preferred to textualism in determining the meaning of the law.