JERUSALEM – The Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University will inaugurate the Aharon Barak Center for Interdisciplinary Legal Research this week on December 22. The event will be attended by the former President of the Supreme Court, Prof. Aharon Barak, President of the Supreme Court, Justice Dorit Beinisch and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University, Prof. Barak Medina.
The new research center will be used as a point of legal research that will be based on external fields of knowledge for law, such as literature, economics, psychology and sociology. Prof. Eyal Zamir from the Faculty of Law will head the center. The center will also organize international conferences in the field of interdisciplinary legal research and will support researchers in this field.
The center is named after Prof. Aharon Barak out of appreciation for his respected contribution to the legal system and to Israeli society in general, and to the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University in particular.
Born in Kaunas, Lithuania, Barak was smuggled out of the Kovno Ghetto in a suitcase as a child and hidden by a Lithuanian farmer. He immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1947.
He studied law at the Hebrew University and in 1968 was appointed Associate Professor of Law and full professor in 1972 at the Hebrew University. In 1974, he became Dean of the Faculty of Law and in 1975 received the Israel Prize in legal sciences. Between 1975-78, he served as Israel’s Attorney general and served as president of the Supreme Court from 1995 until 2006.
In 2006, he published “The Judge in a Democracy”, an examination of his judicial philosophy, in which he describes the role of a judge, beyond dispute resolution, is to connect law with society and to protect the constitution and democracy.
At the event, Prof. Barak will deliver an inauguration lecture on ‘Law and political philosophy – The legitimacy of judicial review of legislation’.
The ceremony will take place on Wednesday, December 22 at 6.30 p.m. in the Maiersdorf faculty Club, Mount Scopus campus.
*
Preceding provided by the Hebrew University