Yoseph M. Edrey. Judicial review of budget laws and tax legislation. Synergic analysis (abstract)

The article is aimed at analyzing the ideas expressed in an article written in Hebrew by Yoseph Edrey that analyses some critical issues of the judicial review with reference to the Israeli budget and tax laws. The starting point of Edrey’s view is that between tax laws and the budget law there is a clear connection. In a democratic society, without the provision of Public Goods and Services (PGS) there is no need for a tax. Indeed, in the literature on public finance of Anglo-Saxon countries, there is an increasingly widespread belief that Governments deliberately manipulate budget data and adopt other measures to pursue certain results in their political agenda. Although Edrey’s article itself has a strong connection with the legal environment of the State of Israel, the Author’s insights are of great interest in a comparative perspective, being oriented at investigating more in general the principles of tax law and the justification of the taxing power. The Author ponts that adherence to liberal theories has strongly influenced Edrey's view regarding the social, political and economic environment of public finance. In the author's view, Edrey’s positions seems to be very close to the theories on the justification of the tax based on the so-called «benefit principle». Conversely, the author states that in the Italian tax system taxes based on non-fiscal purposes are still justified in the light of the «ability to pay» principle, comparing article 53 of the Constitution with other articles to be reasonably balanced in order to ensure their protection. Choosing the «ability to pay principle» by article 53, the Italian Constitution has set aside the «benefit principle». In conclusion, the author agrees with Professor Edrey when he says that in our role of jurists we need to overcome the tradeoff between «justice» and «economic efficiency» (which is the common approach accepted in the world of public finance) in order to bridge conflicting perceptions, mainly between social philosophy and economic efficiency.