This study examines the role of the judiciary in the process of change which has taken place during the last three decades in the legal foundation and function of rural local government in Israel. During those years the rural space has been transformed from a productive space, dominated by cooperative farming communities, to a multifunctional and heterogeneous space, comprising diverse groups of residents, settlement types and economic activities. This transformation is accompanied by a decline in the public image and prestige of the rural sector, manifested in the loss of government support previously granted to this sector, in tribute to its long-standing contribution to national development, and in the presently increasing competition with other sectors of the economy for its share in the allocation of national resources. These developments may be attributed to wider political, social and economic changes which took place in Israeli society in those years, including the diminishing political power of the cooperative sector and its supporting political parties, the decreasing share of agriculture in the national economy, the shift of public policy from protection of the rural sector in general and agricultural land in particular to the encouragement of public and private development ventures on rural land, the turnaround of rural-urban migration trends and a rising awareness to the importance of environmental protection.
The restructuring of the rural space also involves a significant change in the organization of its local government, reflected in the transfer of power from the cooperative to the municipal system, and from the local village committees to the regional council. This change requires considerable legal and administrative adjustments, but these have been lagging behind actual developments in the rural space. The resulting incompatibility between the law and the reality has led to a growing number of petitions submitted to the courts in search of legal solutions to problems at hand, and consequently to an increase in the involvement of the judicial system in issues related to rural local government. Concurrently the judiciary itself has been changing its outlook about its own position vis-à-vis the legislature and the executive and its role in society, and this change also impinges on its approach to issues of rural local government.
The main questions posed by this study are: To what extent can the changes that occurred be attributed to the intervention of the courts and their verdicts? Is it possible to distinguish between issues in which the impact of the court is more prominent and issues where other institutions are more influential in bringing change, and if so, can we explain this difference?
The study is based on an analysis of petitions submitted to the courts and its verdicts from the 1960's to the beginning of the present century. The analysis focuses on four issues:
1. Elections and representation of residents in the local government system;
2. The relationship between the regional council and the local committees, and the division of responsibilities between them;
3. The relationship and interaction between the regional councils, the local committees and the local cooperative associations;
4. Disputes over municipal jurisdictions and boundaries of regional councils and local committees.
The analysis is rooted in a review of the political, economic and social trends which shaped the development of rural local government on the one hand, and the attitudes of the judicial system towards the issues submitted to its rulings, on the other hand. The analysed verdicts are presented in chronological order, permitting an assessment of the impact of changes which occurred over time in the approach of the courts to the issues dealt with, and of the processes taking place in society at large.
The findings reveal that the contribution of the judiciary was highly significant with regard to the issue of elections and representation, which is concerned with civil rights, and its verdicts actually transformed the basic structure and the internal balance of power of the local government system in rural areas. In other issues its impact was more modest as compared to that of other institutions, in particular the Ministry of the Interior. A temporal examination of the verdicts reveals the changing approach of the courts towards rural local government over time, notably the shift in their support from the cooperative to the municipal system, a shift that can also be detected in the attitudes of central government and society at large in Israel.