Essay Sample on Israel's Criminal Justice System

Introduction

Israel stands out among the numerous nations, states, and empires in the world, primarily for its superiority biblically, and secondly for its determination to gain nationalism from its former Palestinian state. The slogan "A land without a people for a people without a land" diligently granted the Israeli's land to call their own. On the fourteenth day of May 1948, Israel was proclaimed a state- a Jewish state of Palestine (Guberman, 2000). This victory was accompanied by a Declaration of the state of Israel as one that would be welcoming to the Jewish immigrants and the ingathering of the exiles, ensure sociopolitical equality to all its inhabitants regardless of their race, gender or religion, and be faithful to the guidelines and principles of the UN charter. The declaration likewise presented a crucial piece of the functioning of the state as one based on justice, peace and the freedom of language, culture, education, religion, and conscience. This was the basis of the criminal justice system of Israel, coupled up with other laws that came into play later on. The criminal justice systems are a set of agencies set aside for the controlling of crime and upon occurrence, imposing penalties and mitigations for the crime offenders. Any basic criminal justice system comprises of the law enforcement, the prosecution, defense attorneys, the courts, and correction facilities and officers, and it is these systems that draw paths through which the rights and freedoms of citizens are protected and respected. In light of these facts and occurrences, it is only fair and logical to take an in-depth look at Israel's criminal justice system, critically scrutinize its laws and policies, and tactically compare its penal system with that of the United States, pointing out areas of weakness, strength and outlining a few recommendations from each system to the other. To do this, the history of the criminal justice system for Israel will be incredibly resourceful, its current systems, reforms made as well as a brief look at the United States current criminal justice system, and compare and contrast it to that of Israel.

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The History of Israel's Criminal Justice System

The past is as relevant as the future, and it is this very phenomenon that made the criminal justice system, CJS, of Israel to incorporate the laws of the land it previously belonged to. The first enactment of the provincial state council was the law and administration ordinance of 1948, which under section 11, stated that the pre-existing laws prior to the attainment of statehood of Israel would continue to be in force, and subject to enactments and modifications ( Roznaia, & Volachc, 2018). This, therefore, made Israel's legal system to incorporate the Ottoman law, the British mandatory legislation as well as the laws of the various religious societies and communities when it came to matters of personal status. The ottoman law primarily operated under the majelle, an Islamic-based comprehensive civil code (Guberman, 2000). The British mandatory regulation then chipped in with the gaining of the mandate of the British over the then Palestine. This law closely incorporated the English legal systems, either the common or the codified law. Then there was the introduction of the criminal code in 1936, which, in conjunction with criminal procedures and evidence, formed the penal law. Years that followed were dominated with feuds, conflicts, and wars, and this necessitated the formation of the emergency regulations in 1945, designed to address the economy as well as the security of the Israelis. The new state of Israel then came under the legislation of the constituent assembly, which was later named the Knesset, and through the first Knesset, it was evident that a constitution was crucial to outline all the laws, rules and regulations of the state. The constitution acts as one of the major bases of any criminal system, and in 1948, Israel, through its first Knesset agreed to come up with one, to clearly outline its laws, legal processes and procedures. This move was, however, unforthcoming due to the Jewish belief of the Torah as the source of legal power. Through the gradual formulation of various basic laws, the constitution, though not officially written, was made. This, alongside the judicial system, offered the basis for the criminal justice system.

The Judicial System

The Israel government is composed of three arms, the executive headed by the prime minister, the legislature composed of the 120 Knesset members, and the judiciary, the prime justice system. The judiciary is composed of three levels of courts; the Supreme Court forms under the law of precedent, the magistrate's court, and the district court. As earlier mentioned, there are legal issues pertaining to personal statutes, and these are decided by the different religious courts, among them the Jews, Christian, Muslim and Druze courts. The magistrate's court is the lowest, the district court the intermediate while the Supreme Court is the court of last resort. Israel has 29 magistrates' courts, five district courts each on the five districts of Israel, and one Supreme Court located in Jerusalem (Colby, 2014). The religious courts are mandated the family laws, among them divorce, marriages, inheritance, religious identity and custody. These courts include the sharia courts for the Muslims and the Rabbinical courts for the Jews. There also exists the labor and military courts set aside for matters labor as well as issues to do with soldiers and military personnel respectively. The judicial system works hand in hand with law enforcement as they work towards the achievement of justice and equality in Israel.

Law Enforcement

Law enforcement forms yet another dimension of the CJS, and it is primarily composed of law enforcement officers. These are, in layman's language, the police officers of various ranks and decorations, who and at the ground level, curbing crime from happening. Crime is often categorized into three: felonies, misdemeanors, and contraventions. Felonies are crimes that attract a minimum of three years imprisonment, misdemeanors having between three months and three years, while contraventions have a maximum punishment of imprisonment of up to three months, or a fine of 7,000 N.S or about $2,300. Felonies majorly comprise drug offenses, murder, and property offenses among others. Police officers, therefore, tract these cases down and process the suspects to interrogations, trials, and convictions. Thus, the Israel police are given the mandate to provide domestic policing, prevent crime, guard the borders, and provide patrols for the traffic, drug, highway, alcohol, and firearms. They are also granted the responsibility for criminal and anti-corruption investigations, operation s regarding domestic counterterrorism, the management of the national emergency call centers, and the maintenance of the national emergency crisis center. Police officers prosecute more than 80% of the cases in the criminal court systems, and this makes the law enforcement unit a crucial part of the CJS (Saunders et al., 2013). The effectiveness of the police is judges by the reduction in crime, the restoration of order, public trust, cooperation and participation and the solving of the crime. Processing crime suspects to the justice system are one way this can be attained.

Criminal Procedures

Criminal procedures are similarly a crucial part of the Israel criminal justice system, and it commences with the arresting of a crime suspect, and their interrogation by the police officers. The criminal procedure permits the state to detain a suspect for 24-48 hours without judicial review. A crime suspect is usually entitled to a representative by a lawyer, and upon lacking one, be provided one by the ministry of justice from the public defense unit. A criminal suspect is entitled to a fair trial to determine their case, or the form of punishment to be imposed on them. This verdict, however, isn't conclusive as the suspect could seek an appeal to a higher court. Israel's Supreme Court also offers a suspect a chance for a new trial, but it is often rare to get a retrial. For instance, between the years 1948, that is the establishment of the state, and 2012, of the hundreds of cases applying for retrial, only 21 succeeded to get a retrial, of them, about half were reconfirmed of the suspect's guilt (Zarchin, 2012). The military court similarly works as the civil one, with a few adjustments made when it comes to the criminal investigations which are carried out the military police corps. Evidence from the investigation is then forwarded to the military advocate general's corps, consisting of legal officers who scrutinize the evidence and either deliver the case to the disciplinary jurisdiction or drop the case. The criminal procedures have often faced reforms and alterations under certain circumstances. The criminal procedure law of 2006, for instance, permitted the state to hold the Gaza residents in their criminal systems for up to 96 hours, more so if the suspects were charged with security offenses (Hirsch, 2012). A judicial selection committee conducts the judicial selection for the Supreme Court, magistrate court, and district court judges. This committee is composed of nine members who are the cabinet member, the minister of justice, two Israel bar association members, two members of the Knesset, preferably each from the coalition and opposition respectively, two Supreme Court justices and the president of the Supreme Court. The law upon which the legal procedures are based is mainly the common law, similar to the one utilized by the United States. However, Israel's criminal justice system is not verbatim to that of the United States, more so when it comes to the presence of the jury during trials.

The US and Israel's CJS

Crime is universal, and this makes a majority of the procedures, processes, and laws put aside to counter them similar even not copyrights of each other. It is due to this reason that Israel and the United States share a lot of their legal and criminal justice procedures and processes, with mild adjustments, adaptations, and alterations. Among the already mentioned similarities are the right to an attorney, and a fair trial. Another aspect of similarity lies in the right to due process, which incorporated the right to be present during a trial. This is covered under the basic law: human dignity and liberty as featured in Israel's constitution enacted in 1992(Hirsch, 2012). The Supreme Court's declaration during the Illinois v Allen case similarly stressed on the right to be present as it recommended that the defendant be present in the court through every trial. The United States former president Barrack Obama, in 2011, signed the National Defense Authorization Act that provided for the indefinite detention of terror suspects arrested within the United States borders (De Nies, 2011). However, even with such a high rate of similarity, the CJS for Israel and the United States differ majorly when it comes to the presence of the jury during a trial. In the United States jurisprudence, the right to a lay jury during a trial, more so trials pertaining serious criminal cases, is a constitutional right of the defendant. The Fifth Amendment, in particular, protect criminal defendants of capital or infamous crime by dictating that a Grand jury indicts them. The sixth amendment likewise emphasizes the need for a jury in a public trial and goes ahead to state that the jury should be impartial (Colby, 2014). The seventh amendment includes the civil cases as eligible for the presence of the jury. The jury must, therefore, be a reflection of all the communities within the United States of America. The presence of the jury eliminates the high degrees o...