Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

• JSD; LLM; LLB
• Professor at Bar Ilan University

Should courts have the power to examine the legislature's enactment process and strike down statutes enacted contrary to procedural lawmaking requirements? This idea remains highly controversial. While substantive judicial review is well-established and often taken for granted, many judges and scholars see judicial review of the legislative process...

This Article explores a novel cross-national phenomenon: the emergence of a new judicial review model that merges procedural judicial review with substantive judicial review. While this model is not yet fully defined, it has already spurred much controversy. The Article explicates this emerging model, which it terms 'semiprocedural review,' and pro...

This article presents the findings of an extensive multi-method empirical study that explored the relationship between temporary legislation, better regulation, and experimentalist governance. Temporary (or “sunset”) legislation, statutory provisions enacted for a limited time and set to expire unless their validity is extended, is often hailed as...

Much attention has been given to the challenge posed by the covid-19 pandemic to people’s health, to public health systems and to the global economy. Insufficient attention has been given to the challenge posed by the 2019 novel coronavirus to legislatures, the vital organ of democracy. This article develops a comprehensive analysis of the multiple...

Covid-19 has shocked governance systems worldwide. Legislatures, in particular, have been shut down or limited due to the pandemic, yet with divergence from one country to another. In this article, we report results from a cross-sectional quantitative analysis of legislative activity during the initial reaction to this shock and identify the factor...

This article examines the role that legal scholars in Israel played with respect to the constitutional overhaul promoted by Israel’s thirty-seventh government, during the period between November 2022 and September 2023. Members of the legal academia in Israel, including the authors of this article, took an active part in resisting the overhaul, eng...

Covid-19 has shocked governance systems worldwide. Legislatures, in particular, have been shut down or limited due to the pandemic, yet with divergence from one country to another. In this paper, we report results from a cross-sectional quantitative analysis of legislative activity during the initial reaction to this shock and identify the factors...

In this work in progress, we offer a BERT-based Hebrew NLP model for the legal, legislative and judicial domains. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first ever BERT-based Hebrew NLP model developed for legal tasks. We illustrate the superiority of our model when applied to both supervised and unsupervised tasks in these domains. The model ma...

This paper explores the role of the Israeli Supreme Court in exercising judicial review of Covid-19 control measures. It argues that the Court exhibited changes in its review methods and an adaptation of its role (and its demands from the other branches of government) throughout this prolong crisis. At the first stage, the Court focused on protecti...

Omnibus legislation is the legislative practice of packaging together numerous unrelated measures in one long bill, which is often passed via an expedited process. In many jurisdictions around the world, this practice has become one of the major developments in the legislative process, a powerful policy tool, and a governance device with important...

This chapter provides a comprehensive scholarly report and analysis of the legal responses to Covid-19 in Israel, covering the period from January 2020 to mid-April 2021. The chapter covers four main topics: I. Constitutional Framework II. Applicable Legal Framework (covering the entire spectrum of constitutional and international law; statutory pr...

This research note introduces two novel indexes designed to measure legislative activity (ParlAct) and use of digital devices to maintain legislative functions (ParlTech) during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. It will also present a novel comprehensive dataset on the functioning of legislatures during a critical period of the pandemic, pro...

This research note introduces two novel indexes designed to measure legislative activity (ParlAct) and use of digital devices to maintain legislative functions (ParlTech) during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. We also introduce a novel comprehensive dataset on the functioning of legislatures during a critical period of the pandemic, provid...

Virtual International Conference on Digital Governance in the Times of Covid-19 (covering Algorithmic Regulation and Digital Policy Tools During Covid-19; Zoom Parliaments During Covid-19; and Online Courts During Covid-19 and Beyond) Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law, 17-18 February 2021 Please see attached file for full program and register to r...

Omnibus legislation is the legislative practice of packaging together numerous unrelated measures in one long bill, which is often passed via an expedited process. In many jurisdictions around the world, this practice has become one of the major developments in the legislative process, a powerful policy tool, and a governance device with important...

On January 13-14 Bar-Ilan University and the Israeli Association of Legislation are hosting a virtual conference on lawmakers and lawmaking during covid-19. The conference includes an International Panel of experts on Legislatures during Covid-19 on January 14 at 4pm (Israel time). Full details and registration to receive the Zoom link available in...

This book is the first in the world to provide a cross-national, comparative exploration of omnibus legislation. It contributes to the global debate over omnibus legislation and offers comprehensive, thorough and multifaceted coverage that concerns the fields of legislation and legisprudence, comparative law, political science, public policy and ec...

מאמר זה דן ביועץ המשפטי לכנסת, במעמדו כמוסד עצמאי מהיועץ המשפטי לממשלה, ובמקומו בהפרדת הרשויות בישראל. הדיון יתבצע מתוך הפריזמה של תפקיד היועץ המשפטי לכנסת ביחס להליכי חקיקה. טענת המאמר היא שקיימת הצדקה לכינונו של תפקיד יועץ משפטי עצמאי לכנסת, כאמצעי מוסדי לחיזוק מעמדה של הכנסת מול הממשלה; הצדקה שרק התחזקה מאז כינון התפקיד בחוק בשנת 2000, לנוכח המצ...

תקציר: מאמר זה מציג תמונה אמפירית על השימוש הנרחב בחקיקה זמנית (המכונה גם "הוראת שעה") ככלי להתמודדות עם אתגרי נגיף הקורונה בישראל. חלקו הראשון של המאמר מציג את מגמת העלייה הדרמטית של החקיקה הזמנית בעת הקורונה, ומתחקה אחר התכליות והרציונלים שהובילו את המחוקקים לעשות שימוש דווקא בכלי חקיקתי זה. חלקו השני של המאמר בוחן את השימוש בחקיקה זמנית מול חלופ...

States around the world have struggled to come up with proper legislative responses to the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. This editorial introduces the special issue on "Global Legislative Responses to Coronavirus" and offers an overview of its rich array of articles. It follows on from the previous special issue on legislatures in a time of Covi...

Legislatures around the world have been challenged by the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. Questions have arisen about parliaments’ operation during the pandemic, their role in combating covid-19, and their relationship with the executive and other state actors. This editorial introduces the special issue on “Legislatures in the Time of Covid-19” a...

Much attention has been given to the challenge posed by the covid-19 pandemic to people's health, to public health systems and to the global economy. Insufficient attention has been given to the challenge posed by the 2019 novel coronavirus to legislatures, the vital organ of democracy. This article develops a comprehensive analysis of the multiple...

This is the online supplement for the article Waismel-manor, I., I. Bar-Siman-Tov, O. Rozenberg, A. Levanon, C. Benoît and G. Ifergane (2020), Covid-19 and Legislative Activity: A Cross-National Study, availble at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342514148_Covid-19_and_Legislative_Activity_A_Cross-National_Study. This supplement includes ap...

Insufficient attention has been given to studying a vital organ jeopardized by covid-19: legislatures. Legislatures across the globe have been shut down or limited due to covid-19. In a comprehensive multidisciplinary study, exploring legislatures across 159 countries, we show that there is no causal relation between the severity of covid-19 and li...

I. Introduction This Comment discusses Grégoire Webber et al.’s new book, Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights Through Legislation (2018). The central thesis of this impressive and novel book is that the legislature is well placed to secure and promote human rights.¹ In establishing this thesis, the book challenges a number of widespread theses...

The novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is extremely contagious and currently incurable. Hence, much of the efforts to contain the pandemic have focused on social distancing, prohibiting gatherings and even curfews. The Coronavirus poses a new dual challenge for legislatures. First, the Coronavirus, and the measures taken to contain its sprea...

Conference Program: Law, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science: Challenges and Opportunities • • • Launching the BIU LawData Lab Bar-Ilan University December 17-19, 2019

This essay discusses legal scholarship about legislatures and legislation. Legislatures have long been both the most neglected and most disrespected branch in legal scholarship. The essay explores whether and how legal scholarship can advance beyond this neglect and disrespect of legislatures. In moving beyond neglect, the essay argues that there...

This Comment discusses Grégoire Webber et al.’s Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights Through Legislation (2018). It explores the book’s contributions in reconceptualizing the relationships between legislation and rights and between legislatures and rights. In discussing the relationship between legislatures and rights, this Comment unpacks the...

Este ensayo explora el resurgimiento de la legisprudencia, entendida como como el campo que, dentro de los estudios jurídicos, se dedica a la investigación y la enseñanza sobre teoría y práctica de la legislación. Además de sostener que estamos asistiendo actualmente a un renacimiento global de la legisprudencia, el ensayo se centra en efectuar una...

This essay explores the revival of legisprudence as the field within legal studies that is dedicated to researching and teaching about the theory and practice of legislation. While arguing that we are witnessing a global revival of legisprudence, the essay focuses on a cross-Atlantic comparison of the field in the Unites States and in Europe. It ex...

[Note: this is the pre-peer reviewed version. The final version will be published in Time, Law and Change: An Interdisciplinary Study (Sofia Ranchordas & Yaniv Roznai, eds., forthcoming] This Article explores the functions or uses of temporary (or “sunset”) legislation – statutory provisions enacted for a limited time. It distinguishes between two...

This paper suggests the use of automatic topic modeling for large-scale corpora of privacy policies using unsupervised learning techniques. The advantages of using unsupervised learning for this task are numerous. The primary advantages include the ability to analyze any new corpus with a fraction of the effort required by supervised learning, the...

Conference program

This essay explores the revival of legisprudence as the field within legal studies that is dedicated to researching and teaching about the theory and practice of legislation. While arguing that we are witnessing a global revival of legisprudence, the essay focuses on a cross-Atlantic comparison of the field in the Unites States and in Europe. It ex...

תקציר בעברית: למאמר זה שתי מטרות מרכזיות. הראשונה היא לפתח את השיח על תורת החקיקה בכתיבה המשפטית בישראל. לשם כך, חלקו הראשון של המאמר מגדיר את התחום, מתאר את התפתחותו, עומד על תחומי העיסוק המרכזיים שבו, ומציע כיווני התפתחות למחקר עתידי. מטרתו השנייה של המאמר היא לבחון את הקשר בין תורת החקיקה לבין מגבלות החקיקה – הן מבחינה קונספטואלית, הן מבחינה נו...

תקציר בעברית: מאמר זה מנתח את פסק דינו של בית המשפט העליון בבגץ 10042/16 קוונטינסקי נ' כנסת ישראל, אשר פסל את הסדר מס דירה שלשית בחוק ההסדרים. זהו אחד מפסקי הדין החשובים ביותר בתחום הביקורת השיפוטית על הליך החקיקה והראשון שפסל חוק בשל פגמים בהליך החקיקה. המאמר טוען כי פסק הדין מתאפיין בפער ניכר בין עמדות שופטי הרוב לדעת המיעוט באפיון המהלך שעושה פס...

תקציר בעברית: מאמר זה בוחן את מקומו של פסק דין בנק המזרחי בהתפתחות המודלים של ביקורת שיפוטית בישראל. המאמר מנתח את ההתפתחויות שחלו לאורך השנים ביחסה של הפסיקה למודלים השונים של ביקורת שיפוטית: מעידן ריבונות הפרלמנט; דרך פרשת ברגמן, שיצרה מודל ביקורת שיפוטית סמי-פרוצדורלית הנובעת מסעיף שריון חוקתי; ופרשת נמרודי שהכירה במודל הפרוצדורלי מספר שנים לפני...

This article discusses a major trend in Israeli legislation in recent years: the rise of temporary (sunset) legislation. The first part of the article presents a first-of-its-kind empirical study on temporary legislation in Israel. The study reveals the growth trend in temporary legislation and the characteristics of temporary legislation in Israel...

This book is a collection of articles in honor of Chief-Justice Dorit Beinisch, the former President of the Supreme Court of Israel. The articles, written by Supreme Court Justices and some of the most prominent legal scholars in Israel, are divided into three main parts: the judiciary and judging; judicial review and constitutional law; and crimin...

This review essay is a book review of Antonios Kouroutakis, The Constitutional Value of Sunset Clauses: An Historical and Normative Analysis (Routledge, 2017). The essay argues that we are in the golden age of the study of temporary legislation, and places Kouroutakis’s book within the burgeoning global scholarship on temporary legislation. The ess...

This article contributes to the nascent debate about the globally emerging, yet largely undefined, phenomenon of evidence-based judicial review of legislation, by offering a novel conceptualization of evidence-based judicial review. It argues that evidence-based judicial review can have two related, but very different, meanings: one in which the j...

This article argues for the development of a semi-procedural model of judicial review in Israel. The semi-procedural model merges substantive judicial review, in which courts examine the constitutionality of the law’s content, and procedural judicial review, in which courts examine the law’s enactment process. The article makes five main contributi...

This Article explores the "law of lawmaking" – the body of rules that govern the legislative process in Parliament. It argues that this body of law, which received very little attention in legal scholarship, has great practical and normative importance. The Article develops the theoretical and normative thinking about the law of lawmaking by focusi...

Special Issue on Mending the Legislative Process in The Theory and Practice of Legislation vol. 3(3) (December 2015), available at http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rtpl20/3/3

In recent years, there has been growing and widespread discontent with the state of the legislative process in many legislatures. At the same time, there is an emerging trend of courts exercising judicial review of the legislative process. Against this backdrop, this article explores the role of courts in efforts to improve the legislative process....

This essay offers a substantive introduction to the special issue on mending the legislative process. Discontent with the legislative process seems to be pervasive. But how could we move from the widely shared lament that the lawmaking process is broken to thinking about ways to mend it? This essay sketches the requisite preliminaries for answering...

This Article analyzes the jurisprudence of CJ Grunis, the President of the Supreme Court of Israel, in light of John Hart Ely's constitutional theory. In an earlier case, during CJ Barak's Presidency, Justice Grunis publicly endorsed Ely's constitutional theory—which has put him at odds with the previous two Presidents of the Court, CJs Barak and B...

This Article deals with a predicament inherent in judicial review: Under the traditional view, judicial declarations of unconsti-tutionality apply retrospectively, meaning that the law is treated as void from its inception—as if it was never enacted. This, however, means nullifying all the legal arrangements, rights, interests, and obligations that...

How would Congress act in a world without judicial review? This Article examines Congress’s capacity and incentives to enforce upon itself “the law of congressional lawmaking”—a largely overlooked body of law that is completely insulated from judicial enforcement. The Article explores the political safeguards that may motivate lawmakers to engage i...

This Article revisits the "enrolled bill" doctrine which requires courts to accept the signatures of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate on the "enrolled bill" as unimpeachable evidence that a bill has been constitutionally enacted. It argues that this time-honored doctrine has far-reaching ramifications that were largely overlooke...

This article revisits the "enrolled bill" doctrine, which requires courts to accept the signatures of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate on the enrolled bill as unimpeachable evidence that a bill has been constitutionally enacted. It argues that the doctrine has far-reaching ramifications that were largely overlooked in existing d...