Naor, Miriam

Family and Early Years

Miriam Naor (née Lerner) was born in Jerusalem on October 26, 1947.

Naor's father, Naftali Lerner (1905-1968), a native of Odessa , repatriated to the Country of Israel in 1922, graduated from the Department of Construction Engineering of Haifa Technion and worked as an engineer. Naor’s mother, Batya Lerner (nee Karklinsky), was born in Lithuania in 1910, arrived in Mandatory Palestine in 1930, graduated from the Hadassah School of Nursing in Jerusalem and worked as a nurse. Miriam's parents got married in 1944; Miriam Naor’s older brother, Menahem, was born in 1945 ^[1] .

In 1965, Miriam graduated from a Jewish gymnasium in Jerusalem ( Hebrew הגימנסיה העברית רחביה ). From 1965 to 1967, she served in the Israel Defense Forces as a teacher ( Hebrew מורה חיילת ) as part of the literacy project ( Hebrew המבצע לביעור הבערות ) ^[2] . In 1971, she graduated with honors from the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ^[1] .

At the end of her studies, she underwent an internship with the judge of the Supreme Court Moshe Landau ^[3] . In 1972, received a license to practice law .

From 1972 to 1979 she worked as a prosecutor in the State Prosecutor's Office, including in the office of the Deputy State Prosecutor, later a judge of the Israeli Supreme Court, Mishael Kheshin ^[4] .

From 1972 to 2001, Naor also taught various disciplines at the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 1975, she married Arye Naor ( Hebrew אריה נאור ) (born 1940), later Secretary of the Government Menachem Begin (from 1977 to 1982) and professor of political science . In 1976, the twin sons were born to the couple: Naftali (later the deputy head of the security of the Hebrew University and political activist in the Likud party ^[5] ) and Michael (later the lawyer ^[6] ).

Judicial Practice Period

In January 1980, Miriam Naor was appointed judge of the Jerusalem World Court, at that time becoming the youngest judge in Israel ^[1] . In April 1988, she was temporarily appointed judge of the Jerusalem District Court; the appointment received permanent status in May 1989.

As a judge of the district court, she was noted, among other things, by her decision in a criminal case on the manipulation of the stock price of banks ( Hebrew פרשת ויסות מניות הבנקים ) of April 1994, in which she recognized large bankers guilty of fraud and sentenced them to unprecedented at that time in the field of white-collar crime, prison sentences ^[7] .

She was also a member of the judiciary, who in April 1999 convicted Minister of the Interior Arie Deri guilty of receiving a bribe and sentenced him to imprisonment ^[8] .

In the District Court, she served, among other things, as Chair of the Board of Competition Law ( Hebrew בית הדין להגבלים עסקיים ) and, since August 2000, as Deputy Chair of the Administrative Court ( Hebrew בית משפט לעניינים מינהליים ).

From June 2001 to the end of March 2002, she temporarily served as a judge of the Israeli Supreme Court . On May 22, 2003, a permanent appointment to the Supreme Court was approved ^[9] , and Naor took office on June 16, 2003.

Since 2003, Naor has also led the Criminal Justice Advisory Commission under the Israeli Ministry of Justice ^[10] .

He also serves as the chairman of the Judicial Ethics Commission ^[11] .

On April 20, 2012, the Judicial Appointment Commission approved Naor's candidacy for the post of Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on the eve of the resignation of Deputy Eliezer Rivlin in May 2012 ^[12] . Naor took office on May 28, 2012.

In December 2011, she was also appointed to the post of Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Israel to replace the retired Judge Ayale Prokoch ^[13] , but resigned from this post in June 2012, citing extreme employment in the judiciary and other posts ^[14] .

The appointment of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

In Israel, there is a tradition of appointing the judge with the longest experience in court (and with equal length of service - the oldest in age) to the post of chairman of the court after the departure of the current chairman (the principle of "seniority") ^[15] .

At the same time, as a result of the amendment to the Law on Courts adopted in 2007 ^[16] , the incoming chairman of the court was required to allow his age to allow a minimum cadence of three years before the retirement prescribed by law for reaching the age of 70 years. As a result of this amendment, Naor remained the only candidate to succeed the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Dorit Beinisch, in February 2012, since her senior judge, Asher Grunis, could not present his candidacy for the presidency of the court, as he himself would reach 70 -year-old and will retire in January 2015, a month before the completion of a three-year cadence.

Attempts by representatives of the Israeli right-wing political camp to abolish the three-year restriction and allow the appointment of Grunis, who was considered the holder of conservative views, to the post of President of the court caused widespread public outcry in Israel, as part of the heated debate in Israeli society over the constitutional role of the Supreme Court and the relationship between the judicial and legislative branches of government ^[17] . Opponents of the bill, including the chairman of the parliamentary opposition, Tzipi Livni , dubbed it the “Law on Grunis”, emphasizing the inappropriateness of personal legislation based on political considerations, and called the bill an antidemocratic attempt to weaken the Supreme Court ^[18] .

Proponents of the appointment of Grunis managed to secure approval of the relevant bill in the Knesset on January 2, 2012. As a result of the amendment to the law that abolishes the requirement of a three-year cadence for the presiding judge, Dorit Beinis Naor and Asher Grunis were the judges with the most experience in the Supreme Court during the resignation of the President (with the exception of Eliezer Rivlin , who had previously announced that he was not ready to nominate his Chairperson's candidacy on the eve of his retirement in May 2012). According to the “seniority” principle, Grunis, as the oldest in age, received the greatest chances to succeed Beinisch as the President of the Supreme Court ^[19] .

On January 3, 2012, opponents of the amendment to the law filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court demanding that the amendment, which in their opinion be gross interference in the process of appointing judges, be invalid ^[20] . The petition was rejected on January 16, 2012. ^[21]

As expected, on February 10, 2012, the Judicial Appointment Commission decided to appoint Grunis as Beinish's successor as President of the court after the expiration of Beinis’ powers at the end of the month ^[22] .

At the same time, the cancellation of the requirement of a three-year cadence as the President of the Supreme Court allowed Naor to take the position of the President until her own resignation in October 2017, to Grunis's resignation in January 2015. On January 15, 2015, Miriam Naor assumed the presidency of the Berkhov Court ^[23] .

Naor was particularly distinguished by her decisions in the field of criminal law, having earned a reputation as a strict but extremely thorough judge in the examination of materials ^[24] . At the same time, Naor in its decisions more than once took the position in defense of the defendants when, in her opinion, the evidence base obligated it ^[25] .

Naor’s efforts to combat corruption in power were noted ^{[26 ]} .

Naor also headed the composition of the court, which rejected the appeal of the former President of Israel Moshe Katsav against the decision of the district court, which found him guilty of two rapes and a number of additional sexual crimes ^[28] .

In general, Naor proved to be a follower of a conservative approach to law: not in the sense of opposing a liberal worldview, but rather in perceiving the classical role of law as a tool for resolving conflicts and interpreting legislation, avoiding the need to resort to the practice of judicial lawmaking and confrontation with executive and legislative branches of government ^{[26] [29]} . At the same time, the outwardly formalistic rhetoric of Naor’s decisions sometimes hid mixed statements in defense of the rights and freedoms of citizens, primarily in the field of preventing discrimination and promoting civil equality ^[30] .

• Biography , on the website of the Israel Judiciary (Hebrew)
• Biography , in the “Archive of Jewish Women” (author: Galya Eliyahu )
• Biography at News1.co.il (Hebrew)
• יובל יועז מרים נאור: אב טיפוס לשופט שמרן הארץ, 16.6.06 (Yuval Joaz, “ Miriam Naor: prototype of a conservative judge ”, “ Ha Arez ” (16.6.06)) - analysis of judicial practice (Hebrew)