Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:20:56.168Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Critical Junctures, Religion, and Personal Status Regulations in Israel and India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Hanna Lerner
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article aims at advancing our understanding of critical junctures in the evolution of religious/secular regulations, referring to those moments in history when one particular arrangement is adopted among several alternatives, establishing an institutional trajectory that is resistant to change in the following years. It traces the regulation of personal status laws in Israel and India, which, despite attempts by political leaders at time of independence to defer clear choices regarding the role of religious law, became generally entrenched in later decades. Based on the Israeli and Indian cases, and in contrast with common approaches, the article demonstrates how decisions made by influential political actors during the foundational stage of the state appear difficult to reform, regardless of the content of these decisions—whether they introduce a radical change or maintain existing practices—or the level of decision making—whether constitutional or ordinary parliamentary legislation.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , Spring 2014 , pp. 387 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Abbott, Andrew 2001. Time Matters: On Theory and Method. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Acevedo, Deepa Das 2012. Secularism in the Indian Context. Law & Social Inquiry 34 (1): 138–167. doi:10.1111/j.1747‐4469.2012.01304.xGoogle Scholar
Ackerman, Bruce 1991. We the People. Vol. 1: Foundations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ackerman, Bruce 1992. The Future of Liberal Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Agnes, Flavia 2000. Law and Gender Inequality: The Politics of Women's Rights in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Agnes, Flavia 2011a. Family Law. Vol. 1: Family Laws and Constitutional Claims. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Agnes, Flavia 2011b. Family Law. Vol. II: Marriage, Divorce, and Matrimonial Litigation. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arian, Asher, Atmor, Nir, and Hadar, Yael 2007. Auditing Israeli Democracy 2007: Cohesion in a Divided Society. Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute.Google Scholar
Aronson, Shlomo 2011. David Ben Gurion and the Jewish Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Austin, Granvile 1999. The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bali, Asli 2011. The Perils of Judicial Independence: Constitutional Transition and the Turkish Example. Virginia Journal of International Law 52 (2): 235–320.Google Scholar
Balkin, Jack, and Levinson, Sanford 2001. Understanding the Constitutional Revolution. Virginia Law Review 87 (6): 1045–1104.Google Scholar
Barak, Aaron 1992. The Constitutional Revolution: Protected Human Rights. Miahpat Umimshal 1:9–35.Google Scholar
Barak‐Erez, Daphne 2009. Symbolic Constitutionalism: On Sacred Cows and Abominable Pigs. Law, Culture, and the Humanities 6 (3): 420–435.Google Scholar
Barzilai, Gad 1998. Courts as Hegemonic Institutions: The Israeli Supreme Court in a Comparative Perspective. Israel Affairs 5 (2–3): 15–33.Google Scholar
Baxi, Upendra 1999. Constitutionalism as a Site of State Formative Reaction. Cardozo Law Review 21:1183–1210.Google Scholar
Bellamy, Richard 2007. Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defense of the Constitutionality of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ben Gurion, David 1953. Hazon Va‐Derech [Vision and Road], Vol. 3. Tel Aviv: Poaley Eretz‐Israel Party.Google Scholar
Bhargava, Rajeev, ed. 2008. The Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Nathan Forthcoming. Islam and Constitutionalism in the Arab World: The Puzzling Course of Islamic Inflation. In Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy, ed. Bali, Asli and Lerner, Hanna Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Capoccia, Giovanni, and Kelemen, R. Daniel 2007. The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutions. World Politics 59 (3): 341–369.Google Scholar
Coalition Board Meetings. 1953. Archived at the Moshe Sharet Israel Labor Party Archives in Beit Berl, Israel [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Cohen, Asher, and Susser, Bernard 2000. Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular‐Religious Impasse. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Haim 2000. Religious Coercion in Israel. In Bernson Book, ed. Barak, Aaron and Berenson, Haim, 297–339. Jerusalem: Nevo.Google Scholar
Collier, Ruth Berins, and Collier, David 1991. Shaping the Political Arena. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Constitution in Broad Consent. 2006. Report of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Regarding Proposals for the Constitution of the State of Israel. Jerusalem: Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.Google Scholar
Don‐Yehiya, Eliezer 1999. Religion and Political Accommodation in Israel. Jerusalem: Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies.Google Scholar
Drayton, Robert Harry 1934. Laws of Palestine. Vol. II: A Collection of Imperial Acts, Royal Instructions, Orders, Proclamations and Rules, in Force on 31st Day of December 1933. London: Waterlow and Sons Limited, London Wall.Google Scholar
Elon, Menachem 1993. The Way of Law in Constitution: The Values of a Jewish and Democratic State in Light of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. Iyuney Mishpat 16:659–688 [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Engineer, Ali Asghar 1987. The Shah Bano Controversy. Hyderabad: Orient Longman.Google Scholar
Engineer, Ali Asghar 1995. Problems of Muslim Women in India. London: Sangam.Google Scholar
Farha, Mark 2010. Stumbling Blocks to the Secularization of Personal Status Laws in the Lebanese Republic. Paper presented at the Wworkshop on Law, Religion, and Democracy, Istanbul.Google Scholar
Friedman, Menachem 2005. These Are the Chronicles of the Status‐Quo: Religion and State in Israel. In Brethren Dwelling Together. Orthodoxy and Non‐Orthodoxy in Israel: Positions, Propositions and Accords, ed. Dromi, Uri, 57–89. Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Galanter, Mark, and Krishman, Jayanth 2000. Personal Law and Human Rights in Israel and India. Israel Law Review 34:101–132.Google Scholar
Gavison, Ruth, Kremnitzer, Mordechai, and Dotan, Yoav 2000. Judicial Activism: For and Against. The Role of the High Court of Justice in Israeli Society. Jerusalem: Magnes, Hebrew University [Hebrew].Google Scholar
George, Alexander, and Bennet, Andrew 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, Rosalind, and Ginsburg, Tom 2011. Deciding Not to Decide: Deferral in Constitutional Design. International Journal of Constitutional Law 9:636–672.Google Scholar
Golan, Avirama 2009. Marriage for the Shunned. Haaretz, July 22.Google Scholar
Government Meeting Minutes. 1953. Archived at the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem [in Hebrew].Google Scholar
Haaretz. 2009. Editorial. Haaretz, July 21 [in Hebrew].Google Scholar
Halperin‐Kaddari, Ruth 2001. Towards Concluding Civil Family Law—Israel Style. Bar Ilan Legal Studies 17:105–157 [in Hebrew].Google Scholar
Halperin‐Kaddari, Ruth 2004. Women in Israel: A State of Their Own. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Ron 2002. Absent Minded Misses and Historical Opportunities: Jewish Law, Israeli Law and the Establishment of the State of Israel. In On Both Sides of the Bridge: Religion and State in the Early Years of Israel, ed. Bar‐On, Mordechai and Zameret, Zvi, 21–55. Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi.Google Scholar
Hasan, Zoya 1989. Minority Identity, Muslim Women Bill Campaign and the Political Process. Economic and Political Weekly, January 7.Google Scholar
Hasan, Zoya 2003. Shah Bano Affair. In Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, ed. Suad, Joseph, 741–744 Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran 2000. The Political Origins of Judicial Empowerment Through Constitutionalization: Lessons from Four Constitutional Revolutions. Law & Social Inquiry 25:91–149.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran 2004. Towards Juristocracy: The Origin and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran 2010. Constitutional Theocracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hofnung, Menachem 1997. Authority, Influence and Separation of Powers: Israeli Judicial Review in Comparative Perspective. Mishpatim 28:211–238.Google Scholar
Hosen, Nadirsyah 2007. Shari'a and Constitutional Reform in Indonesia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Jacobsohn, Gary J. 2003. The Wheel of Law: India's Secularism in Comparative Constitutional Context. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jaffrelot, Christophe 2005. Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Karayanni, Michael 2007. The “Other” Religion and State Conflict in Israel: On the Nature of Religious Accommodations for the Palestinian‐Arab Minority. In Religion in the Public Sphere: A Comparative Analysis of German, Israeli, American and International Law, ed. Brugger, W. and Karayanni, M., 333–378. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Katzenelson, Ira 2003. Periodization and References: Reflections on Purposive Action in Comparative Historical Social Analysis. In Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, ed. Mahoney, James and Reuschemeyer, Dietrich, 270–304. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Khilnani, Sunil 1999. The Idea of India. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.Google Scholar
Khilnani, Sunil 2007. Nehru's Faith. In The Crisis of Secularism in India, ed. Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney and Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder, 89–103. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Knesset Records. 1950. Jerusalem. Vol. 5.Google Scholar
Knesset Records. 1953. Jerusalem. Vol. 5.Google Scholar
Kuru, Ahmet T. 2007. Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological Struggles, and State Policies Toward Religion. World Politics 59 (3): 568–594.Google Scholar
Kuru, Ahmet T. 2009. Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States, France and Turkey. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kuru, Ahmet T., and Stepan, Alfred, eds. 2012. Democracy, Islam and Secularism in Turkey. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lerner, Hanna 2013. The Political Infeasibility of “Thin Constitutions”: Lessons from Israeli Constitutional Debates 2003–2006. Journal of Transnational Law and Policy 22:85–121.Google Scholar
Lerner, Hanna 2004. Democracy, Constitutionalism and Identity: The Anomaly of the Israeli Case. Constellations 11 (2): 237–257.Google Scholar
Lerner, Hanna 2009. Entrenching the Status Quo: Religion and State in Israel's Constitutional Proposals. Constellations 16:443–461.Google Scholar
Lerner, Hanna 2011. Making Constitutions in Deeply Divided Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levinson, Sanford, ed. 1995. Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lifschitz, Shachar 2006. Spousal Registration—Preliminary Design. In Book in Memory of Prof. Shava, ed. Barak, Aaron and Friedman, Daniel Tel Aviv: Ramot‐Tel Aviv University Press [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Liviatan, Ofrit 2009. Judicial Activism and Religion‐Based Tensions: The Case of India and Israel. Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 26:583–621.Google Scholar
Lotan, Orit 2005. “Mesoravot Get” (Denied of Divorce) in Israel. Report presented to the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Madeley, John 2008. Religion and the State. In Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics, ed. Haynes, Jeff, 174–191. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Madeley, John, and Enyedi, Zsolt, eds. 2003. Church and State in Contemporary Europe: The Chimera of Neutrality. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Tahir 1986. Personal Law in Crisis. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James 2000. Path Dependence in Historical Sociology. Theory and Society 29 (4): 507–548.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Thelen, Kathleen, eds. 2009. Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mapai Meeting Minutes. 1953. Moshe Sharet Israel Labor Party Archives in Beit Berl, Israel [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Marzouki, Nadia Forthcoming. Dancing by the Cliff: Constitution Writing in Post‐revolutionary Tunisia 2011–2013. In Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy, ed. Bali, Asli and Lerner, Hanna Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mautner, Menachem 1991. The Decline of Formalism and the Rise of Values in Israeli Law. Tel Aviv: Ma'agaley Da'at.Google Scholar
Menon, Nivedita 1998. Women and Citizenship. In Waged of Freedom, ed. Chatterjee, Partha, 241–266. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Menski, Werner F. 2001. Modern Indian Family Law. London: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Mody, Perveez 2008. The Intimate State: Love Marriage and the Law in Delhi. New Delhi: Routledge.Google Scholar
Narain, Vrinda 2001. Gender and Community: Muslim Women's Rights in India. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Nehru, Jawaharlal 1942. Toward Freedom. New York: J. Day.Google Scholar
Nehru, Jawaharlal 1989. The Discovery of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Özbudun, Ergun, and Genckaya, Omer Faruk 2009. Democratization and the Politics of Constitution Making in Turkey. Budapest: CEU Press.Google Scholar
Page, Scott E. 2006. Path Dependence. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1:87–115.Google Scholar
Parashar, Archana 1992. Women and Family Law Reform in India. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul 2000. Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics. American Political Science Review 94 (2): 251–267.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul 2004. Politics in Time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Raday, Frances, Shalev, Carmel, and Liban‐Kooby, Michal, eds. 1995. Women's Status in Israeli Society and Law. Jerusalem: Shocken.Google Scholar
Raj, Selva J., ed. 1991. Quest for Gender Justice: A Critique of the Status of Women in India. Madras: T. R. Publications.Google Scholar
Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder 2003. The Scandal of the State: Women, Law and Citizenship in Postcolonial India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Rattan, Joyti 2004. Uniform Civil Code in India: A Binding Obligation Under International and Domestic Law. Journal of the Indian Law Institute 46.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Amnon 1972. Right to Marriage. Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 3.Google Scholar
Safran, Nadav 1981. Israel: The Embattled Ally. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sathe, S. P. 2002. Judicial Activism in India. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scolnicov, Anat 2006. Religious Law, Religious Courts and Human Rights Within Israeli Constitutional Structure. International Journal of Constitutional Law 4 (4): 732–740.Google Scholar
Sezgin, Yüksel 2010. How to Integrate Universal Human Rights into Customary and Religious Legal Systems? Journal of Legal Pluralism 60:5–40.Google Scholar
Shankar, Shylashri 2002. The War of the Worlds: Political Equality and Religious Freedom in India and Israel. PhD Diss., Department of Political Science, Columbia University, NY.Google Scholar
Shafir, Gershon, and Peled, Yoav 2002. Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shapira, Yonathan 1996. Politicians as a Hegemonic Class: The Case of Israel. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim.Google Scholar
Shiffman, Pinhas 2001. Civil or Sacred: Civil Marriage and Divorce Alternatives in Israel. Jerusalem: Association for Civil Rights in Israel [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Slater, Dan, and Simmons, Erica 2010. Informative Regress: Critical Antecedents in Comparative Politics. Comparative Political Studies 43 (7): 886–917.Google Scholar
Smith, Donald Eugene 1958. Nehru and Democracy. Bombay: Orient Longmans.Google Scholar
Soifer, Hillel David 2009. What Is a Critical Juncture? Permissive and Productive Conditions in Historical Causation. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto.Google Scholar
Solanki, Gopika 2011. Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism and Gender Equality in India. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Som, Reba 1994. Jawaharlal Nehru and the Hindu Code: A Victory of Symbol over Substance? Modern Indian Studies 28:165–194.Google Scholar
Stepan, Alfred 2001. The World's Religious System and Democracy: Crafting the “Twin Tolerations.” In Arguing Comparative Politics, 213–253. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Strum, Philippa 1995. The Road Not Taken: Constitutional Non‐Decision Making in 1948–1950 and its Impact on Civil Liberties in the Israeli Political Culture. In Israel: The First Decade of Independence, ed. Troen, Ilan S. and Lucas, Noah, 83–104. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Subramanian, Narendra 2008. Legal Change and Gender Inequality: Changes in Muslim Family Law in India. Law & Social Inquiry 33 (3): 631–672.Google Scholar
Subramanian, Narendra 2009. Myths of the Nation, Cultural Recognition and Personal Law in India. Paper Presented at the Harvard Conference on National Myths, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Subramanian, Narendra 2010. Making Family and Nation: Hindu Marriage Law in Early Postcolonial India. Journal of Asian Studies 69:771–798.Google Scholar
Swirski, Barbara, and Safir, M. P. 1991. Calling the Equality Bluff: Woman in Israel. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney 2010. The Strategy of Paired Comparison: Toward a Theory of Practice. Comparative Political Studies 43:230–259.Google Scholar
Triger, Tzvi 2005. Remembrance of Laws Past: Israel's Adoption of Religious Marriage and Divorce Law as a Means for Reviving the Jewish People's Lost Manliness. In Trials of Love, eds. Naveh, Hannah and Ben‐Naftali, Orna Tel Aviv: Ramot‐Tel Aviv University Press. [Hebrew].Google Scholar
Vatuk, Sylvia 2008. Islamic Feminism in India: Indian Muslim Women Activists and the Reform of Muslim Personal Law. Modern Asian Studies 42:489–518.Google Scholar
Wald, Kenneth D., and Calhoun‐Brown, Allison 2006. Religion and Politics in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy 1999. Law and Disagreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Rina Verma 2006. Post‐Colonial Politics and Personal Laws: Colonial Legal Legacies and the Indian State. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yildirim, Seval 2004. Expanding Secularism's Scope: An Indian Case Study. American Journal of Comparative Law 52 (4): 901–918.Google Scholar
Zameret, Zvi 2002. Yes to a Jewish State, No to a Clericalist State: The Mapai Leadership and its Attitude to Religion and Religious Jews. In On Both Sides of the Bridge: Religion and State in the Early Years of Israel, ed. Bar‐On, Mordechai and Zameret, Zvi, 175–243. Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi.Google Scholar
Zarchin, Tomer 2010. Controversial Civil Union Bill Up for Discussion. Haaretz, March 9.Google Scholar

Cases Cited

Bavli v. the Grant Rabbinical Court (1994).Google Scholar
Daniel Latify v. Union of India (2001).Google Scholar
Funk‐Schlezinger v. Ministry of Internal Affairs, HCJ 143/62 (1963).Google Scholar
Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (1985).Google Scholar
Roe v. Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court, HCJ 2232/03 (2006).Google Scholar
Yossi Ben‐Ari & Others v. Director of Population Admin., Ministry of Interior, HCJ 3045/05 (2006).Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

Dowry Prohibition Act (1961).Google Scholar
Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (1956).Google Scholar
Hindu Marriage Act (1955).Google Scholar
Hindu Succession Act (1956).Google Scholar
Indian Succession Act (1925).Google Scholar
Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act (1986).Google Scholar
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005).Google Scholar
Rabbinical Jurisdiction Act (1953).Google Scholar
Rabbinical Tribunals Act (1953).Google Scholar
Special Marriage Act (1954).Google Scholar
Spousal Covenant for Persons Having No Religious Affiliation Act (2010).Google Scholar
Spouses' Property Relations Act (1973).Google Scholar