Yoel Zussman

In 1976 he succeeded Shimon Agranat as President of the Supreme Court. He retired in 1980 and was succeeded by Moshe Landau. He was an author of several books on bill laws and arbitration laws. He died in 1982.

In 1965 during the Supreme Court hearings on election appeal case Ya'akov Yardor vs Central Election Committee for the Sixth Knesset, popularly known as El-Ard Petition, Sussman coined definition of Israel as a "self-defending democracy", which was adopted by the Court. Supreme Court upheld ban on El-Ard (English: The Land), a radical Arab electoral list, from participation in the Sixth Knesset elections and Sussman, taking the Supreme Court of West Germany ruling as a precedent, stated that there are supraconstitutional considerations hailing from natural law, that may be superior to any legislation:

Yoel Zussman also spelled Yoel Sussman (Hebrew: יואל זוסמן, born 24 October 1910, died 2 March 1982) was an Israeli jurist and the fourth President of the Supreme Court of Israel, from 1976 to 1980.

Sussman was born in 1910 in Kraków, Austria-Hungary (now in Poland). He received his LLB from the University of London and his PhD from Heidelberg University. He immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1934. He was certified as a lawyer and served as Chief Prosecutor of the Israel Defense Forces. In 1951 he was appointed to the Supreme Court and served as its Deputy President for several periods of time until 1953.