Law reform is now under consideration in most countries of the world and practically everywhere, the problem of the instruments of this reform arises: should the reform be carried out by the decisions of judges or by statute, and if by statute, must such law be codified?

Common law countries are both attracted and at the same time frightened by codification. This may well be the situation here in Israel, where the common law tradition is still deeply rooted but where there is also a certain tradition in favour of codification.

At any rate, the subject cannot be treated today as it would have been a century ago. The old controversies about the usefulness of codification in the abstract are out of fashion. In England, the fierce attacks of Jeremy Bentham against the common law—“dog law”—have had no influence on the development of English law. On the continent, Savigny and the German Historical School did not prevent the progressive codification of German law nor the adoption in the other countries throughout the nineteenth century of codes inspired by the French model.

The Druzes have never been recognised as a religious community under Muslim rule. During the Ottoman period such recognition was only granted to the members of the tolerated religions — Christians and Jews — within the institutionalised framework of the millet system. The Druze religion, though originating from the Ismā'īliyya, an extreme branch of the Shī'a, seceded completely from Islam and has, therefore, experienced periods of persecution by the latter. The Druzes were theoretically amenable to the sharī'a courts in matters of personal status and succession, yet not as Muslims (as is usually assumed owing to the custom of taqiyya, simulation, prevailing among them) but as persons not belonging to a recognised religion. At the same time, they seem in practice to have enjoyed a certain autonomy in these matters under their own religious and customary law. There is documentary evidence of this for the Lebanese Druzes, of the late 19th and early 20th century, but this autonomy should not be construed as the status of a recognised religious community.

All attempts of the Druzes to achieve such a status in the era of British rule in Palestine were unsuccessful. They were not included in the list of recognised communities in the Palestine Order-in-Council, 1922–1947, nor the Succession Ordinance, 1923, probably due to a desire of the British Mandate to maintain the status quo in religious matters with only such modifications as the new political situation required. At the same time, the Government recognised Druze autonomy in matters of marriage, while other matters of personal status, and those of succession, were referred to district courts, since the Order-in-Council restricted the personal jurisdiction of the sharī'a courts to Muslim litigants.

Israel's Civil Wrongs Ordinance, and the statutory immunity provided in it from liability in torts for strike action, was enacted at a time when the strike was regarded simpliciter as a “sacred tradition” and when no distinction had yet been drawn by statute or the courts between legitimate and illegitimate strikes. Since that time there has been an evolution of restrictions on the liberty to strike both in statutory provisions and in judicial doctrine.

In the public services, by statutory provision, all strikes which are not authorised by the statutorily designated trade union and nearly all strikes during the duration of a collective agreement are now considered to be “unprotected strikes”. Unprotected strikes are divested of the statutory immunities generally bestowed upon strikers or strike organisers for breach of their employment contract or for causing breach of contract; however, under the statutory provisions only the primary employer may sue. By judicial doctrine, formulated in the National Labour Court, strikes which are held for the purpose of enforcing legal rights rather than for the fixing of economic rights are not a legitimate exercise of the liberty to strike.

Insurance policies are interpreted, as a rule, in favour of the insured. Several rationales have been used to justify the practice. One recurring explanation centres around the poor readability level of insurance contracts. The following judicial comment, though more colourful than most, is typical: