It seems that there are different opinions in the Supreme Court on this matter. The Honorable Justice Cheshin is of the opinion that the emphasis is placed on the observance of the laws. As to the interpretation of the law, the judge cannot today give an interpretation of the law that he could not have given prior to the enactment of the Basic Law (see the Gneimat case [13], at pp. 642-643).
In the case of the High Court of Justice 6789/83 "Proper Purpose for Absorption" et al. v. Minister of Health et al. [4]), the Supreme Court ruled (in the words of the Honorable Justices Goldberg, Kedmi and Zamir) that "according to the section on the preservation of the laws in the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation, Amendment No. 2 is valid even if it violates the freedom of occupation, and there is no need to check whether it meets the test of the limitation clause." It is implied that an interpretation provision in the spirit of the Basic Law does not include prosecution under the criticism of the limitation clause. If not, what is the difference between the old law and the new law, both of which are subject to the limitation clause (and see, in the context of our case, the interesting judgment of my colleague Justice Groves in a criminal case (Netanya) 1310/95, 1311, 1312 [22]).
However, in view of the final conclusion that I have reached in our case, and in view of the differences of opinion between the Honorable Justice Groves and my colleague on the Panel, the Honorable President Laron, on the one hand, and the Honorable Justice Yitzhak, who sat in the Trial Court in this case, and my colleague in the Panel, the Honorable Vice President Pilpel, on the other hand, I will refer in this judgment to the interpretive approach of the spirit of interpretation according to the Basic Laws of the Old Law, and not according to the interpretive approach brought above. Rather, according to an exegetical approach that will be brought now.
The Honorable President Barak presents the matter in a different spirit, certainly with a different nuance. Thus it ruled in the case of Gneimat [13], which was quoted in the case of the High Court of Justice 5016/96, 5025, 5090, 5434 Horev et al. v. Minister of Transport et al. (hereinafter – the High Court of Justice Horev [17]), at p. 34: