The most intriguing result of this simple search was the disproportionately high number of scholarly publications, originating in Israel, regarding judicial corruption in Israel, compared to the United States. In at least three major law schools there are professors who research and publish reports on the subject. One of them (Prof Daniel Friedman, Tel Aviv University) even served for a short time as justice minister, and tried to launch a judicial reform initiative (he failed and had to resign). With it, government position in general is that judicial corruption does not exist. So far I have failed to find a single case of a judge convicted on corruption, or similar charges in Israel's history.
The polls are difficult to compare, but it also seems that the Israeli public has much worse opinion of its judiciary than the US public.
All of this is surprising, since my perception is that judicial corruption in the United States is a much bigger problem than in Israel.
Of interest, one of the comparative studies points out the jury system as a key to reducing court corruption. Obviously, the state and US judiciary have been busily stripping the right for jury trial of its content. However, in Israel, there has never been any jury system!
Otherwise, some of the studies support my conclusion, that there was a dramatic increase in government (and judiciary) corruption in Israel following the 1967 war.
I have tied it in the past to the switch from French patronage to US patronage of Israel after 1967. Others tie the change to the occupation of Palestinian territories, which breeds corruption, as is the general security situation.
One of the funniest discoveries was that in the 1960s there was a movement in the US academia, which developed a theory that corruption is not evil, only a necessary part of political development. It appears that such strange notion was nurtured in order to justify corrupt practices by the US government and US corporations in dealing with developing nations. According to this theory, corruption is integral to the process of development. Following development in such nations, political structures would arise, which would lead to self-termination of corruption... This convenient theory leads to the opposite conclusions compared to Le Carre' theory of "Nations", "Failed-nations", and "Un-nations", which addressed the same issue.
LINKS:
[1] 12-12-12 Judicial Corruption in Israel – scholarly studies
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