ALUMNI PROFILE
by
Natasha Parassram Concepcion*
Dan Yakir, an attorney
for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and a 1989 graduate of
the Washington College of Law (WCL) LL.M. program, became involved in the Israeli
civil rights and liberties movement in 1983, during his third year of study
at the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University. At that time, Yakir began volunteering
with ACRI, an Israeli nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening civil
liberties and human rights through legal action, education, and public outreach.
After receiving his law degree, Yakir spent one year working as a law clerk
for a district court judge in Tel Aviv, and then one year at a small private
law firm dealing with civil rights law, while remaining active as a volunteer
for ACRI. He eventually became Chairperson of the Tel Aviv Chapter and member
of the national board of ACRI. As Chairperson, Yakir was responsible for supervising
the activities of the Chapter and as a member of the national board, Yakir participated
in setting the overall policies and budgets for the local chapters of ACRI throughout
Israel. Through his involvement with ACRI, Yakir has worked on some of the most
progressive civil rights cases and has been an active force in the gay and lesbian
civil rights movement in Israel.
In 1988, Yakir was accepted into the Israel-U.S. Civil Liberties Law Program, a fellowship program sponsored by the New Israel Fund (NIF). North American, Israeli, and European philanthropists established the NIF in 1979 as a partnership to support nonprofit organizations, dedicated to human and civil rights in Israel, such as ACRI. Each year, the fellowship program offers two young Israeli lawyers the opportunity to study civil rights law in the LL.M. program at WCL. Professor Herman Schwartz, Co-Director of the WCL Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, is the Academic Coordinator of the program at WCL. Upon graduation, the lawyers return to Israel, where the fellowship covers their salaries for one year of work in an Israeli civil rights organization.
Yakir welcomed the opportunity to study and work on civil rights law in the United States, and saw the fellowship as an opportunity to join ACRI as a full time staff attorney after completing his studies. While studying at WCL, he worked in both Washington, D.C. and New York City with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an American organization dedicated to advocacy in the area of individual civil rights. In New York, Yakir worked on both the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights project and their AIDS project. Citing this as one of the most important experiences during his studies, Yakir learned how the ACLU selected, developed, and presented cases to the media as well as to the U.S. courts, a skill that continues to serve him at ACRI. Furthermore, Yakir believes that his experience in New York empowered him as a gay lawyer to work on lesbian and gay rights in Israel.
After graduating from WCL in 1989, Yakir returned to Israel to work for the Tel Aviv Chapter of ACRI as a staff attorney. His practice dealt with gay rights, freedom of speech, and human rights in the occupied territories. In 1995, Yakir became the legal counsel for ACRI at the national office in Jerusalem, and is now responsible for overseeing ACRI staff attorneys involved in litigation.
Yakir also has been involved with the drafting of progressive civil rights legislation in Israel. In 1989, he helped the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Association write an amendment for the Equal Opportunity in Employment Act to prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation. It was signed into law by the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, in December 1990, and represents the first legislation protecting lesbians and gays against employment discrimination.
During his litigation work, Yakir has brought standard-setting cases using the Israeli Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty, which was passed in 1992. Since Israel has no written constitution, fundamental rights are enacted through piecemeal legislation in the form of basic laws. Prior to 1992, however, there were no basic laws covering human rights. While it covers only limited rights and liberties, the 1992 Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty represented an important step in the codification of civil rights and liberties in Israeli law.
In 1996, in a case that helped define the freedom of expression provisions in the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty, Yakir represented a prisoner attempting to publish a personal column in a local newspaper. The Israeli Prison Authority had prevented the prisoner from publishing his column, arguing that it would inhibit the ability of the prison to discipline the prisoners. The Supreme Court overturned the Prison Authority's decision and ruled that prisoners did not lose all their human rights when they entered prison, and that the Prison Authority would need more compelling reasons to preclude the prisoner from publishing his article. Since the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty does not explicitly cover freedom of speech, this case was important because the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law offers guidance about the parameters of the freedoms and liberties included under the law.
In October 1999, Yakir brought a case to the Supreme Court challenging the Military Justice Act (Act), which allowed the military police to arrest a soldier for twenty-five days without a hearing before a judge. After Yakir filed the petition, the Knesset amended the Act and the period was shortened to four days. However, the Supreme Court accepted Yakir's argument that even the amended Act was not in conformity with the right to liberty enshrined in Article 5 of the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty, and struck down that section of the Act. This case became the first Supreme Court decision to use the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty to partially overturn an act of the Knesset.
Yakir also participated in one of the most important cases in Israeli legal history, which was decided in September 1999. The case involved a Palestinian detainee who died during an interrogation by the Israeli General Security Service (GSS) after being violently shaken. The GSS is the main security apparatus that deals with terrorism in Israel, and since terrorism is a paramount issue in Israel, the Israeli government has allowed the GSS wider latitude in dealing with security issues than the normal police forces. Yakir became involved in the case in the summer of 1995. After the detainee's death, ACRI filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking it to prohibit the GSS from using this interrogation method because it was a form of torture prohibited under Israeli law. Other individuals and groups also submitted petitions, including WCL LL.M. alumni Avigdor Feldman, who represented the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. The petitions argued that the physical means employed by the GSS investigators infringe upon the human dignity of the suspect undergoing interrogation, and the method used was lethal and caused irreparable damage to the detainees. ACRI also argued that the methods employed by the GSS violated the Convention Against Torture, which Israel ratified on October 3, 1991. After years of evading the issue, a special panel of nine Supreme Court justices convened to hear the case.
According to Yakir, this case is one of the most important cases in Israeli legal history. The decision of the Supreme Court surprised many civil rights advocates because of the sweeping rhetoric it employed. In the opinion, rendered amid hostile public opinion against limiting GSS authority, the Supreme Court stripped the GSS of the wide latitude the government previously allowed the service. The Court held the GSS did not have the authority to use physical force against prisoners, stating that GSS interrogators had no more power than regular policemen.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak subsequently has appointed a committee of jurors to study the decision and make recommendations on its implementation. Yakir testified before this committee in November 1999. He stated that ACRI opposed any legislation that would authorize the GSS to use force during interrogation. He urged the committee to legislate a specific prohibition against the use of torture.
Though he believes the Supreme Court decision is an extremely important victory, Yakir still maintains that the battle against torture is not over. Recently, the opposition party Likud introduced a private bill in the Knesset to authorize the GSS to use special means of interrogation in certain emergency situations. Such a bill, if passed, would threaten the progress made in the area of torture.
Yakir feels privileged to work as a lawyer with ACRI because he can devote his time to worthwhile cases. Although his work can be frustrating at times, Yakir obtains great satisfaction from it. He looks forward to continuing his crusade for greater protection of civil rights and liberties in Israel. Currently, Yakir is working on another case involving the GSS use of torture against detainees, this time, in the Al Khaim prison in South Lebanon. Although Israeli troops are visibly present in South Lebanon, Israel denies any responsibility for the human rights violations occurring in the prison. On behalf of ACRI, Yakir has filed a petition asking the Israeli Supreme Court to order the Minister of Defense to release the detainees or allow them their due process rights. It is Yakir's hope that a victory in this case would force Israel to take responsibility, under international law standards, for the enforcement of human rights in South Lebanon.
*Natasha Parassram Concepcion is a J.D. candidate at WCL and a staff writer for the Human Rights Brief.
The proper citation for this article in the Human Rights Brief Volume 7, Issue 2, beginning at page 26 is: 7 No. 2 Hum. Rts. Brief 26 (2000).
