Yesterday's High Court of Justice ruling denying the state immunity against suits for damages incurred during noncombat operations in the territories is important on two levels. The first relates to the law itself, which the court found to cause disproportionate harm to basic human rights. The second relates to the court's growing willingness to overturn Knesset legislation in general - something that has aroused opposition among some Knesset members, including Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik.

The legal justification for overturning the law was its severe and disproportionate infringement on human rights that are guaranteed by the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom. While the law's purpose - adjusting existing torts law to the reality of a warlike situation - was worthy, the court said, this did not justify exempting the state from liability for damages incurred even during noncombat operations in the territories.

The court stressed that this law was unique, with no counterpart in other Western countries. In the United States and Britain, for instance, the state has immunity only for damages incurred during wartime or in clashes with another army.

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It also rejected the argument that the law's defects were rectified by various exceptions written into it - for instance, that it did grant immunity for damages suffered by someone while in Israeli custody, or for damages caused by traffic accidents - or by the existence of a special committee authorized to grant compensation even to someone not legally entitled to sue. Neither of these, the court wrote, made up for a law that left people "who were not involved in any hostile activity, and who were not injured due to a security forces operation meant to cope with hostile activity," without recourse for the harm they suffered.

The court was aware that canceling the law would force the state to invest huge resources in defending itself against damage suits, but considered this minor compared to the harm some Palestinians have suffered as a result of the security services' actions.

However, the state remains immune from damages incurred during "combat operations." In the past, the Supreme Court ruled that this immunity applied only to combat operations in the "narrow and simple" sense of the term, meaning operations in which soldiers' lives were in real danger. It was this ruling that led the state to enact the current law, with its much broader definition of combat operations. Now, the courts will presumably have to revisit the question of how this term should be applied.

On a more general level, the ruling reflects the court's willingness to exercise judicial review over Knesset legislation. This is only the sixth time the court has overturned part of a law, and the fact that this law had diplomatic-security ramifications will undoubtedly lead to particularly harsh criticism of the ruling by MKs. But despite this, the court was not deterred. This indicates that the court is relaxing its self-imposed restraints on judicial intervention in Knesset legislation.