User:Ovedc/Uriel Lynn

Uriel Lynn (אוריאל לין,born April 2 1935) is an attorney, President of the Tel Aviv and Central Israel Chamber of Commerce and President of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce. He also served as a member of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), as the director of the Israeli-North American Investment Authority, as the Director of State Revenue, as the Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, and as the Chairperson of the Executive Council of the Israel National Road Safety Authority. He is also actively involved in matters pertaining to the Israeli business and public policy sectors. Finally, Adv. Lynn formerly served as a board member in several public companies and as arbitrator in several domestic and international arbitrations.

Biography
Lynn was born Uriel Assoulin in the Old City of Jerusalem to Yehonatan Assoulin, who emigrated to Israel from Morocco, and Margalit Chazan, who was born in Israel. His maternal grandfather, Rabbi Ben-Zion Mordechai Chazan, was the founder and gabbai (sexton) of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem as well as the person chosen to deliver the Old City Jewish Quarter's instrument of surrender to Transjordanian Legion Commander and Military Governor of the Old City of Jerusalem Abdullah Tal On May 28, 1948 (during the Israeli War of Independence).

Lynn was educated at a secular institution for army children in Bnei Brak followed by the Meir Shfeya and Ben Shemen Youth Villages. Prior to his mandatory army service, Adv. Lynn also studied at the Haifa Marine School (currently known as the Israel Nautical College in Akko). He enlisted in the IDF at the age of 17, served in the Armored Corps and in the 7th Armored Brigade, and was honorably discharged from mandatory service in 1954. He also took part in three wars as a member of the IDF reserves (The Sinai War of 1956, the Six-Day War of 1967, and the Yom Kippur war of 1973).

Adv. Lynn studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1954-1958) and was awarded the degree of Master of Laws LLM summa cum laude. He also studied law at the University of California, Berkeley from 1961-1963 and was awarded an additional Master of Laws degree.

Upon completing his studies at UC Berkeley, Adv. Lynn served as the Director of West Coast Operations for the Jewish National Fund’s Fundraising Organization.

After returning to Israel, Adv. Lynn practiced as an attorney and initially specialized in road traffic accident cases. He then transitioned to the private business sector and served as the General Counsel and Company Secretary of ATA Textiles Ltd. as well as a Director of the Jerusalem Jersey textile company.

Adv. Lynn served as a board member in several public companies and state owned companies, including the Israel Electric Company, Israel Chemicals Ltd., Israel Petrochemical Enterprises Ltd., Gadot Biochemical Industries Ltd. and ZIM. He also served as the Board Chair for Naphtha Israel Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

In addition, Adv. Lynn has been publishing articles in all ,major Israeli press on issues pertaining to economics, social affairs and the law since 1972.

Beginning of Involvement in Public Affairs
Adv. Lynn joined the Israeli Liberal Party in 1973 and was elected a member of its National Executive Body after two years.

Following the political upheaval of 1977, Finance Minister Simcha Erlich appointed Adv. Lynn to be the Ministry of Finance’s representative in and director of the Israeli-North American Investment Authority Adv. Lynn reorganized this Authority’s activities and set its primary objective as the introduction of American companies – and especially high-technology companies – to the Israeli market. It was during his tenure, for example, that National Semiconductor decided to establish a production plant in Herzliya. In addition, Adv. Lynn assisted Elron Electronic Industries Ltd. – an Israeli high-technology company - in its first significant fundraising campaign. Adv. Lynn returned to Israel two years later (1979) and was appointed to the role of Director of State Revenue.

Director of State Revenue
As Director of State Revenue, Adv. Lynn was responsible for the Ministry of Finance’s Income Tax, Customs and VAT Divisions. During his three-and-a-half year tenure in this role, Adv. Lynn sought to simplify the Israeli tax system and improve its functioning in the service of promoting the payment of true taxes. His initiatives led to the cancellation or reduction of 11 taxes, as such an exemption from land appreciation tax on the sale of residential apartments (provided that no more than one such sale occurred in every four-year period), the cancellation of property tax (for all types of structures - residential, industrial, commercial, and service-related), the cancellation of estate tax, the reduction of purchase tax for durable family goods (ovens, refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, and small vehicles), the reduction of purchase taxes for raw material and consumer goods, the reduction of employer loans taxes, the reduction of service purchase tax, the reduction of employer tax (in the industrial, tourism, and agricultural sectors), and the cancellation of business tax. Moreover, Adv. Lynn opposed government attempts at reinstating the travel tax, which was only reinstated after the end of his tenure.

Finally, Adv. Lynn also unified and simplified the tax Law enforcement system and extended the use of the tax deduction at source (TDS) methodology.

Activities at the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure
Adv. Lynn was appointed to the role of Director-General of the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure in 1982, and served in this role until the elections to the 11th Knesset in July 1984. Between 1982-1984 Israel experienced particular difficulties in the procurement of crude oil that was only supplied to Israel from Egypt and Mexico and at relatively high cost. As Director-General, Adv. Lynn influenced the shaping of a policy that promoted the construction of coal-fired power plants – a policy that was subsequently adopted by the Israel Electric Corporation. Adv. Lynn further spearheaded the power plants’ rapid transition from fuel-oil based to coal-based electricity generation (a cheaper and more available fuel source). Israel’s three (at the time) 350 MW power plants were thus adapted to coal-fired operations and the Hadera Marine Coal Port constructed in order to receive coal shipments, directly from the pier, without polluting the environment.

Furthermore, the Ministry’s investment in the development of alternative energy sources such as the Ministry Grant given to the Bronicki family for the development of solar ponds in the Jericho region contributed toward the growth and development of the Ormat company as well as to the development of solar energy and biomass energy projects.

Within two months of his appointment, Adv. Lynn implemented a transition of the Israel Electric Company’s tariff structure to a new Load/Time based structure also known as TAOZ. This tariff structure was formulated with a view to balancing the loads placed on the national electric grid, to encouraging the consumption of electricity during low-load periods, and to deterring users from consuming electricity during peak-load periods. Adv. Lynn also worked alongside Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Yitzhak Moda'i in facilitating competition between the large fuel companies, which maintained a pre-determined market segmentation scheme up to that time as well as a billing formula dictated by the Ministries of Finance and Energy.

During his tenure as Director-General, Adv. Lynn was also involved in the decision to halt the Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project (also known as the Two-Seas Canal project) because of its marginal contribution to the national electric grid, as well as the plan to develop an Israeli nuclear-fueled power plant.

In 1983, Adv. Lynn decided to run for Mayor of Haifa, and the government sought to pass an amendment that would allow him to do so. However, he eventually withdrew from the mayoral race and remained at his post as Director-General after realizing that he would not secure the necessary support from his colleagues in the Liberal Party.

Activities in the Knesset
Adv. Lynn was elected to the 11th Knesset as part of the Liberal wing of the Likud parliamentary group and began his tenure as a Member of Knesset in 1984. During his time in the Knesset, Adv. Lynn was a member of the Economic Affairs Committee as well as the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. He also served as Chair of the Road Safety Committee and as Chair of the Subcommittee on Energy.

In the course of his tenure as the Deputy Chairperson of the Economic Affairs Committee, Adv. Lynn facilitated the passage of such economic laws as the Antitrust Law. In addition, Adv. Lynn participated in all the deliberations related to and contributed toward the formulation and passage of Amendment No. 4 of the Telecommunications Law in 1986 – the first piece of legislation to regulate cable and satellite television broadcasts in Israel. This law was renamed in 2002 and is currently known as the Communications Law (Telecommunications and Broadcasting).

As an active member of the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, Adv. Lynn was involved in the shaping of many laws, such as the Basic Law: The State Comptroller, as well as a reformulation of sexual offense legislation.

Adv. Lynn was also elected to the 12th Knesset and served as an MK between 1988-1992. As Chairperson of the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, he passed a number of legal reforms and led the passage of some 95 new laws, about half of which were private bills and many of which were laws that instituted constitutional changes and changes in Israel’s political methods (see the detailed listing below).

Among other laws, Adv. Lynn led the passage of:
 * A law that altered the elements of Self-defense in Israeli law – whereby a person who is unlawfully attacked such as to present a risk to her or his life, liberty, bodily integrity, property or dignity would be entitled to defend her or himself and transfer the risk to her or his assailant (Amendment no. 37 to the Penal Law, 5752 AM – 1992).
 * A diverse system of laws such as the Environmental Hazard Prevention Law (5752 AM – 1992); The Hague Convention (Return of Abducted Children) Law (5751 AM – 1991); the cancellation of censorship on plays (A Law for Suspending the Validity of the Public Play (Criticism) Ordinance, 5749 AM – 1989); the Bail Release Law, which eased the process of releasing suspects on bail such that they would not need to be brought before a court (A Law to Amend the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (No. 5), 5750 AM – 1989) - before the passage of this amendment, a suspect would have to brought before a court in order to be released on bail; a Medical Confidentiality Retention Law that cancelled the requirement that civil servants sign a sweeping waiver of their right to medical confidentiality; Amendment No. 5 to the Civil Service (Appointments) Law, 5751 AM – 1991 – before the passage of this amendment there was no limitation to civil servants’ eligibility to vote in those party institutions that determined who would be elected to represent the party in the Knesset and in the government. This allowed the civil servants to amass a great deal of power they could potentially abuse in the relations with MKs or their ministers. This amendment provided that civil servants would be ineligible to take part in party elections held to determine the party representatives in the Knesset and in the Government; Amendment No. 17 to the Israel Bar Association Law, 5750 AM – 1990, that allowed the establishment of independently funded law colleges; and Amendment No. 2 to the Couple Property Relations Law, 5750 AM – 1990, that expanded women’s rights in couple property relations.

Changing the Political Method
Adv. Lynn spearheaded the passage of series of laws that changed the Israeli political method following the toppling of the national unity government in March 1990 and the subsequent public uproar and protests against the faults in the Israeli political system. These laws included the following:


 * Increasing the Israeli electoral threshold necessary to have representation in the Knesset, from 1% to 1.5% in order to reduce the number of parliamentary groups in the Knesset, and thus end the phenomenon of one-person parliamentary factions.
 * An emendation of the Basic Law: The Government redefining the government’s structure and powers on all key issues as well as redefining its relation with the Knesset. The amended law also provided for a directly-elected prime minister, a provision which was later rescinded (after being used in three rounds of elections).
 * An emendation of the Political Parties Law which requires any organization seeking to offer candidates for election to the Knesset to be registered as a political party, it also defines a political party as a separate legal entity, and requires any political party to submit a code of statutes, establish party institutions, and submit to oversight by the State Comptroller of Israel’s Office.
 * Amendments that prevent a member of the Knesset from abandoning her or his parliamentary faction and joining another parliamentary faction for the sake of securing personal benefits, a corrupt practice known as Kalanterism (party-switching for securing political benefits, named after Rachamim Klanter, a member of the Jerusalem City Council in the 1950s, who was the first to engage in this practice). This phenomenon mushroomed in the struggle of power between the Likud and the Labour party after the toppling of the unity government in March 1990 and shook to the core the public belief in the Israeli electoral system and system of the government. Additional related amendments provided that the results of an election could not be challenged in a court of law and that voters may not be subjected to unfair or undue influences. An additional series of amendments required every government to establish a Ministerial committee for Security Affairs, imbued the prime minister with the authority to fire a deputy minister, and instituted new rules that prevented civil servants from being involved in political activities, and finally instituted a change in the law requiring an absolute majority of Knesset members in order to topple the government in a vote of non-confidence.

The Constitutional Revolution
As chairperson of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Adv. Lynn led the passage of the Basic Law: Human Liberty and Dignity and the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation.[. These basic laws anchor fundamental individual rights and constitute a mini Bill of Rights for Israel in terms of content and constitutional standing. These laws passed, to a great extent, after deliberations with representative of the religious parties in the committee.

The main provisions of these laws are as follows:


 * Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty – a law that anchors an individual’s fundamental liberties, such as the right to life and safety, the right to bodily integrity, the right to property, the right to dignity, the right to privacy and more.
 * Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation - defines the right of each individual or legal body to engage in any occupation he, she or it sees fit as long as this occupation does not harm the public interest.

These new basic laws were declared by the Israel Supreme Court as the “constitutional revolution” imbuing it with the authority to carry out Judicial reviews off laws passed by the Knesset relating to basis human rights.

Whether or not the Knesset actually intended to imbue the basic laws with a supra-legal standing and whether it expected that the Supreme Court would interpret them in this manner is a matter of some controversy. Some members of the Knesset at the time when these basic laws passed, for example, later claimed to have been deceived by the initiators of these laws including Adv. Lynn. A ‘softer’ position argues that the laws’ promoters made the potential constitutional significance of these laws deliberately ambiguous and that they would have been opposed if this point had been made clearer. Adv. Lynn contested both claims vigorously and particularly in his book The Birth of a Revolution, and argued that both claims constituted “a mockery of the Knesset as well as a disregard of both facts and truth.

Presidency of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce
At the end fo 2002, Adv. Lynn was elected by secret ballot to the role of President of the Tel Aviv and Central Israel Chamber of Commerce as well as to the role of President of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, Israel’s largest business organization. Adv. Lynn was re-elected to both roles four times and still holding this position. He also acted – by virtue of his position - as member of the Advisory Committee of the Bank of Israel.

Adv. Lynn expanded the Chamber’s scope of activity and transformed it from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Chamber of Commerce to the Tel Aviv and Central Israel Chamber of Commerce. In 2009, Adv. Lynn led the Chambers of Commerce’s separation from the Coordinating Bureau of Economic Organizations as part of the struggle against the harm inflicted on employers’ rights as a result of the ‘package deal’ signed between the Histadrut (Israel’s national trade union center), the Coordinating Office and the prime minister which involved amendments to 13 labor laws that – if passed – would have changed in Israel the proper balance between the right of the employees to the rights of the employers.

Adv. Lynn was elected to the executive board of Eurochambres (the organization of European Chambers of Commerce) six times as well as three times to the executive board of International Chamber of Commerce that represents Chambers of Commerce from 125 countries.

Adv. Lynn’s leadership allowed the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce to become the umbrella organization for Israel’s trade and service sector and liberal-professional sector. In this capacity, Adv. Lynn has been waging a constant struggle against what he perceived to be encumbrances imposed on Israel’s business sector in the form of new labor laws, excessive consumer protections, and environmental protection laws that place the burden of protecting the environment on the business sector. Adv. Lynn also led a battle against the labor courts’, and especially the Labor Courts of Israel’s denial of basic employer rights such as denial of their freedom of expression in the case of employee organization (e.g. the establishment of unions) in their businesses. In addition, Adv. Lynn has been waging a longtime struggle against what he perceived to be excessive freedom granted to employees of state-owned monopolies to engage in strike actions and thus harm the economy and the general public. This latter struggle led to his appointment as a public representative at the Labor Courts of Israel, where he served for two years.

Lynn during his tenure concentrated on the implementation of structural changes that will affect all the business sector in Israel in some major aspects:

First of all, reducing corporate taxes to all businesses from 36% to 25%; The right of every business in time of war or pandemic to get protection from the state regardless as to the nature of the business;  Reducing the right to strike in the state owned monopolies, especially in the sea ports; Reducing the burdensome control of the Standards Institution of Israel on the importation of goods into the country;  Preventing the automatic increase in the municipal taxes; The decrease of the regulatory load imposed on the business sector;  Special and longtime support for the construction of new sea ports in Israel which broke the monopoly of the old ports; Persistent battle against changing the balance between employer rights and employee rights.

In closing, it should be noted that Adv. Lynn has published many articles in all major Israeli newspapers in the course of his public service career and thereafter (including today, that express his views with respect to each of the seven positions he held in the course of his career.

The Struggle against Road Traffic Accidents
A large part of Adv. Lynn’s public-sector activities have been dedicated to the struggle against road traffic accidents, and were based on his experience as a specialist attorney in this field. In this respect, Adv. Lynn served as chairperson of the Knesset Subcommittee for Road Safety and as the Joint Chairperson of the 1987 Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry tasked with combatting road traffic accidents. In addition, he also served as the chairperson of a committee tasked with improving driving standards among new drivers.

In 2010, Adv. Lynn was appointed as chairperson of the Israel National Road Safety Authority. In this capacity, Adv. Lynn formulated a program pertaining to vulnerable sectors such as kindergarten students and infants, pedestrians, and young drivers, the prohibition of cellphone use while driving, issues associated with driving trucks and buses, issues pertaining to urban traffic disruptions, drivers operating vehicles without a valid license, and habitual traffic offenders. Finally, Ad. Lynn also initiated a motion seeking to promote cyclist welfare.

One of his recommendations for increasing the standard of the duty of care demand from drivers approaching a pedestrian crossing was incorporated into the Transportation regulations in 2015. Adv. Lynn is also credited with instituting the mandatory use of seatbelts while driving on urban roads, a measure that saved many lives. He also submitted a bill during the 11th Knesset (in 1985) that states that 20% of all revenues earned by the state as a result of the purchase and use of vehicles are to be invested in improving the road infrastructure. This bill passed its first reading but did not advance any further due to Ministry of Finance opposition. However, it did raise awareness of the need to expand investments aimed at improving the country’s poor road infrastructures.

His Books

 * Milestone: A History of Public Service in Seven Chapters (Even Derech: Shiv’ah Perakim Be’Sherut Ha’Tsibur), edited by Dan Carmely and published in Tel Aviv by Bursi Publishers in 2012: A selection of Adv. Lynn’s articles as published in the Israeli press in the course of forty years of public service.
 * Li’ad and the Ravens (Li’ad Ve’Ha’Orvim), edited by Vered Levi-Barzilay and published in Tel Aviv by Contento de Semrik in 2014.
 * Self Defense (Haganah ‘Atsmit), edited by Vered Levi-Barzilay and published in Tel Aviv by Contento de Semrik in 2015.
 * Fond Memories of Shfeya (Zichronot Ahava Mi’Shefeya), edited by Eliraz Ner-Gaon and published in Tel Aviv by Steimatzky in 2015.
 * The Birth of a Revolution (Leydatah Shel Mahapecha), edited by Yehudah Ye’ari and published in Tel Aviv by Yedioth Books in 2017.
 * Life According to the Uncle from China (Ha’Chayim Al Pi Ha’Dod Mi’Sin), published in Tel Aviv by Steimatzky in 2018.
 * How the Israeli Political System was changed 1990-2022 (Ketzad Shunta Hashita Hapolitit Be-Israel), written jointly eith adv. Shlomi Loya, published in Tel-Aviv by Teper Publishers Ltd. in 2021.

Prizes and Awards

 * Knight of Quality Government, awarded to Adv. Lynn by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel in 2003.
 * The Grosse Goldene (Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria) awarded to Adv. Lynn in August 2006 by the Federal President of the Republic of Austria.
 * Movement Luminary Decoration, awarded to Adv. Lynn by the Likud Movement in December 2013.
 * Gordon College Award