Hanan Melcer

Hanan Melcer (Hebrew: חנן מלצר‎‎, born April 1951) is an Israeli Supreme Court of Israel Justice, and as of October 2017, Deputy Chief Justice.

Melcer was born in Tel Aviv to Holocaust survivors from Poland. He studied in Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, and earned his Master's degree in Statutory law from Tel Aviv University in the academic reserve program, where he also later taught as a Law Professor. In the IDF he served as a Military Advocate, reaching the rank of Lt. Colonel.

In the 1970s, he was active in Dash and was a fierce opponent of the coalition with Begin and his right-wing Likud party in 1977. Later, he was involved with the Shinui party. In 1996 he also ran in the primaries for the Labor Party, where he later served as the influential chairman of its legal committee until he resigned in 2004, after his name came up as a candidate for the Supreme Court.

On June 24, 2007 he was selected by the Judicial Committee to serve as a judge on the Supreme Court. His appointment was historical because it was the first time in decades that a lawyer from the private sector was chosen, and it was part of the judicial shakeup initiated by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann.

On August 27, 2007, he was sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court by the President Shimon Peres.

Melcer was part of the unprecedented decision by the Supreme Court in 2009, to order the government to demolish illegally built Palestinian homes in the West Bank. He was also one of the judges in the controversial ruling on the Immanuel Beit Yaakov controversy.