Basic Laws of Israel

The Basic Laws of Israel (Hebrew: חוקי היסוד‎‎, ħuqey ha-yesod) are the constitutional laws of the State of Israel. These laws deal with the formation and role of the principal institutions of the state, and with the relations between the state's authorities. They also protect civil rights, although some of these rights were earlier protected at common law by the Supreme Court of Israel. The Basic Laws are intended to be draft chapters of the future Israeli constitution, and act as a de facto constitution until their future incorporation into a formal, unitary, written constitution. Israel as of 2017^[update] functions according to an uncodified constitution consisting of both material constitutional law, based upon cases and precedents, common law, and the provisions of these formal statutes. The Basic Laws do not cover all constitutional issues, and there is no deadline set for the completion of the process of merging them into one comprehensive constitution. There is no clear rule determining the precedence of Basic Rules over regular legislation, and in many cases this issue is left to interpretation by the judicial system.

Israel's declaration of independence stated that a formal constitution will be formulated and adopted no later than 1 October 1948. The deadline stated in the declaration of independence proved unrealistic in light of the war between the new state and its Arab neighbors. General elections were arranged on 25 January 1949, in order to elect the Constituent Assembly which would approve the new state's constitution. The Constituent Assembly convened on February 1949. It held several discussions about the constitution without reaching an agreement.

For a number of reasons, Israel's first prime-minister, David Ben-Gurion, did not wish to create a constitution. After only four meetings, the Constituent Assembly adopted on 16 February 1949, the Transition Law, by which means it became the "First Knesset" The Knesset is, therefore, a Sovereign Parliament, like the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Parliament of New Zealand, that is not bound by a codified constitution. Because the Constituent Assembly did not prepare a constitution for Israel, the Knesset is the heir of the Assembly for the purpose of fulfilling this function.

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