28.05.2012                      07.Siwan. 5772                    Schawuoth 2

In den Ruhestand versetzt:

Israel's deputy Supreme Court president, a champion of freedom of expression, retires

Justice Eliezer Rivlin retires after having reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Deputy Supreme Court President Eliezer Rivlin, one of the court's foremost champions of freedom of expression, will retire Monday, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Rivlin's most recent defense of freedom of expression was his decision to overturn the conviction of journalist Ilana Dayan in a libel suit filed by an IDF officer known as Captain R. In 2006, he wrote a minority opinion arguing that another journalist, Amnon Dankner, should be acquitted of libel for calling right-wing activist Itamar Ben-Gvir a Nazi. Freedom of expression, he wrote in that ruling, is "the mother of all freedoms," situated in "the highest stratum of basic rights," and essential to a functioning democracy….