Dalia Dorner likes the old joke about the Israeli who wakes up in the morning, fights with his wife and ultimately says to her, “That’s it. I’m going to the Supreme Court!”
As a former justice on Israel’s highest court, she knows how frequently the institution is used. Unlike its U.S. counterpart, which hears about 100 cases a year, the Israeli Supreme Court annually takes on a few more.
About 13,000 last year. Many of them practically walk-ins.
Dorner, 77, stepped down in 2004 after a dozen years on the bench, but remains active in the legal profession, especially in the realm of international human rights. She visited the Bay Area last week to give the keynote speech at the opening of U.C. Berkeley Law’s newly launched Institute for Jewish Law and Israeli Law, Economy and Society.
She was impressed with the institute, saying it will “provide a valuable resource to Americans interested in the study of Israeli and Jewish law, and will be a podium in which legal developments in Israeli law can be heard internationally.”
Dorner was not the first woman on the Israeli Supreme Court, which usually includes 12 to 14 justices; that honor went to Miriam Ben Porat in the 1960s. But she did rule on many important cases during her tenure. Many had to do with freedom of speech, minority rights and equality of opportunity to all Israeli citizens, Jew and Arab alike.
One of her opinions decreed that the Israeli military had to allow for personalized epitaphs on headstones of slain soldiers. She wrote, “Every child is an only child to his parents.” In another opinion, she ordered El Al airlines to provide a ticket to a gay flight attendant’s partner, just as it does for straight couples.
Some of her toughest cases pitted the need for tight security in a besieged Israel against the respect for freedom and human rights.
“All the world faces a problem,” she said. “How to protect human rights in an area where security is challenged by terror. It began with Israel. I always say, it’s not only 9/11 in Israel: It’s 10/11 and 11/11. I always stress that terror must be fought according to the law, because if the state fights terror outside the law, it cannot be accepted.”
Born Dolly Greenberg in Istanbul to Jews originally from Ukraine, she moved with her family to pre-state Israel in 1944. Like all Israelis, she served in the military, which is where she first developed an interest in law.
After completing law studies at the Hebrew University, she served as an officer with the military police. From there she became a district court judge before her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993.
That court is among the country’s most respected institutions. Any citizen can petition the court, as can Palestinians in the West Bank. The court has often ruled against entrenched power in the Knesset and the military, which only enhanced its reputation for independence.
“In our balancing our security needs and human rights we have taken judgments that were at the time not very popular,” she said. “As a court, there are core values we can’t compromise on.”
Since leaving the court (the mandatory retirement age is 70), Dorner has been active as a law professor and public speaker. She is also president of the Israeli Press Council, which, among other things, helps safeguard freedom of the press in Israel.
It’s not all work and no play for Dorner. She is married with two grown sons, and her husband and one of her children are both lawyers. Her other son became an engineer, much to her relief.
But then he fell in love with a law student.
Said Dorner, “When he brought his bride over and he told me she studies law, I said to my son, ‘What did you do? We need a dentist.’ ”