The Reasonableness Standard: A Critical Administrative Tool for Oversight of the Executive Authority | INSS
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Home Posts The Reasonableness Standard: A Critical Administrative Tool for Oversight of the Executive Authority

The Reasonableness Standard: A Critical Administrative Tool for Oversight of the Executive Authority
Mohammed S. Wattad
24 July, 2023
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The national security of a democratic regime derives from a delicate balance in the relations between all government authorities. Whatever the point of balance may be, the central idea is that no authority has absolute power, and that each of the government authorities operates in a wide area, while subtly controlled and supervised by the other government authorities.

In the State of Israel, not only does the executive authority have residual power, but the legislative authority is controlled, to a large extent, by the executive authority. As such, the executive authority is the most powerful among all government branches, and it is not supervised, in any way, by the legislative authority.

Especially in the absence of a constitution, even more so in the absence of reinforced fundamental laws, the existence of independent and effective judicial oversight over the executive authority is necessary. Moreover, in the absence of administrative legislation that establishes standards for the exercise of governmental power by the government, and especially standards for limiting this power, there is no escaping the development of administrative law in a judicial manner, as has been the case in the State of Israel since its establishment. In this context, the standard of reasonableness, and more precisely the standard for the extreme lack of reasonableness, is a critical administrative tool for judicial oversight of the executive authority.

Eliminating the reasonableness standard means the creation of a governmental gravitational field so strong in the executive authority that no individual and/or authority can escape it, and all are swallowed up in it. It is a governmental black hole that concentrates all governmental power, literally, in the hands of the government. Such concentration of power in the hands of one authority in itself undermines the ground under the regime base that underlies the national security of the State of Israel.

Topics: The Judicial Overhaul: The Judicial Dimension, “The judicial revolution”
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  • Research

    • Topics
      • Israel and the Global Powers
      • Israel-United States Relations
      • Glazer Israel-China Policy Center
      • Russia
      • Europe
      • Iran and the Shi'ite Axis
      • Iran
      • Lebanon and Hezbollah
      • Syria
      • Yemen and the Houthi Movement
      • Iraq and the Iraqi Shiite Militias
      • Conflict to Agreements
      • Israeli-Palestinian Relations
      • Hamas and the Gaza Strip
      • Peace Agreements and Normalization in the Middle East
      • Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States
      • Turkey
      • Egypt
      • Jordan
      • Israel’s National Security Policy
      • Military and Strategic Affairs
      • Societal Resilience and the Israeli Society
      • Jewish-Arab Relations in Israel
      • Climate, Infrastructure and Energy
      • Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict
      • Cross-Arena Research
      • Data Analytics Center
      • Law and National Security
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      • Cognitive Warfare
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      • Perceptions about Jews and Israel in the Arab-Muslim World and Their Impact on the West
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