Judge (ret.) Professor Yigal Mersel is an adjunct associate professor of the practice, at the Faculty of Law. He completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University, where he also earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He has served as a visiting researcher at various institutions abroad, including as a postdoctoral fellow at NYU. His main areas of research are public law and freedom of information, democracy and political parties, judicial administration, judicial disqualification, and legal ethics.

Until his retirement from the judiciary in 2023, after 27 years of service, Professor Mersel held a series of positions including: legal assistant to Supreme Court President Justice Aharon Barak, Registrar of the Supreme Court, judge on the Magistrate’s Court, judge on the Jerusalem District Court, Director of the Institute for Judicial Education and Training , and in his final role — Director of the Courts and President of a District Court. He has been a member of numerous committees and organizations in Israel and abroad.

Since 2023, Professor Mersel has been serving as the CEO of the Yad Hanadiv (a Rothschild Foundation). The foundation focuses on long-term strategic solutions to deep-seated challenges facing Israeli society, in the fields of early childhood, education, academic excellence, environment, and the Arab society. Yad Hanadiv has established many institutions and initiatives in Israel, including the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the National Library, the Open University, and more.

Representative publications:

• The Constitutional Status of Political Parties (2004) (Hebrew)
• Judicial Disqualification (2006)(Hebrew)
• "The Dissolution of Political Parties: The Problem of Internal Democracy", 4 Int'I J. Const. L. 84 (2006).
• "Judicial Review of Counter Terrorism Measures - The Israeli Model for the Role of the Judiciary During the Terror Era", 38 N.Y.U.J. Int'l L and Pol 67 (2006)
• "Hans Kelsen and Political Parties", 39 Isr. L. Rev 39 (2006).
• “On Aharon Barak's Activist Image", 47 Tulsa L. Rev 339 (2011)
• "Establishing a Judiciary Based Research Center - The Israeli Experience", 2 Judical Education and Training 35 (2014) (with Keren Weinsal-Margel).
• "Revising The Limits on Judicial Expression In The Digital Age: Striving Towards Proportionality in The Cyberintimidation Context",The National Journal of Constitutional Law (2018)(with Karen Eltis).
• "Israeli Knesset Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, 1992; Aharon Barak, "A Judge on judging: The Role of a Supreme Court in a Democracy", 2002, The New Jewish Canon: Ideas and Debates 1980-2015, 46 (Yehuda Kurtzer & Claire E. Sufrim eds., 2020).
• "Main Measures Taken by the Israeli Judiciary in Response to COVID-19", 8 The Court Administrator 27 (2020).
• Evaluation and Measurement of Courts , in Shetreet and Chodosh Judicial Independence : Cornerstone of Democracy ( Brill Nijhoff 2024) 125.