Last update - 00:00 21/10/2007
Knesset committee chair: Constitution likely to hurt minority rights
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The constitution currently being drafted by a Knesset committee is not likely to safeguard the rights of homosexuals and other minority groups, Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman MK Menachem Ben-Sasson told the Israel Bar Association last week.
Ben-Sasson's surprising comments were made in response to a query by the association's chairman, Amos Van-Amden, who is a homosexual.
Ben-Sasson confirmed that in order to reach a political compromise which would allow the ratification of a constitution, it would in fact have to come at the expense of minority rights, such as those of the homosexual and lesbian community.
Van-Amden had asked Ben-Sasson: "I belong to a minority, the gay and lesbian minority, and the constitution and the Supreme Court are classically supposed to defend obvious minorities - those that will remain minorities forever. Won't the developing constitution bring us to a status of "oil on the wheels of revolution", or scattered shrapnel on the battlefield for the sake of the biggest historical compromise?"
Ben-Sasson replied: "The answer is yes. The readiness of a large Knesset majority to establish a constitution today, will certainly come at the expense of those who have seek the aid of courts [to defend their rights]."
"When a constitution is made sixty years after the establishment of the state, it strongly reflects the status-quo, and in the status-quo these minorities - liberals, religious minorities, and national minorities - feel better in a court. And as a result of this, I fear they will feel less good with the constitution.
Constitutions in democracies are generally meant to protect minority rights by anchoring them into the law, so that they can be implemented by a court and prevent abuse by political majorities.