The Prime Minister's precedent-setting request, when his criminal trial has not yet ended, is causing a stir in the legal system. A senior source told Ynet:"If President Herzog agrees, it will be a political pardon." Netanyahu, it seems, does not meet most of the components required to fulfill the request - including an admission of guilt. The accepted procedure - and the department that will deal with the explosive issue
Tuba Zimuki|
The only department that is supposed to begin processingPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pardon request, for now, is the Ministry of Justice's Pardons Department. Every citizen who requests a pardon has a general"protocol" for handling the pardon before it is forwarded to the Minister of Justice, who grants a"signature of existence" - a kind of legal validity for accepting or rejecting the pardon, which he forwards to the President of the State as a"recommendation."
A senior legal source says that "It appears that Netanyahu does not meet the vast majority of the normal standards for a convicted person in Israel, and if he is granted a pardon - it will in fact be a political pardon. If it is granted to him, it will be outside the normal framework, similar to the precedent of the pardon of Line 300 - then we are talking about exceptional circumstances from a national and security perspective - and the fact is that since 1986, and even after the High Court of Justice confirmed the legal validity of the pardon, the legal system or politics have never repeated a similar case."
Netanyahu and his defense attorney, Attorney Amit Hadad (Photo: Miriam Elster)
The Minister of Justice bases his decision on a factual and legal analysis provided by the Pardons Department, which is based on the law, practice, and High Court rulings that dealt with precedential pardons along the way. If a particular citizen requests a pardon, a file is opened for him in which the facts of the case are collected from the period before the pardon application was submitted - up to the days of submitting the application.
This is the verdict in the trial of the citizen who is requesting the pardon, including all appeals that the case went through until the verdict became final, since ordinary citizens do not request a pardon in the midst of the legal process in court, except in rare cases such as terminal illnesses. If there are additional defendants in the case who have not requested a pardon, an opinion must be obtained from the prosecution - that is, from the prosecutor's office - regarding how receiving a pardon will affect the remaining defendants in the case.
Herzog and Netanyahu, June (Photo: Avi Ohayon/GPO)
As part of the process, the Pardon Department asks the police to check whether the applicant has a criminal record. If the offenses are minor, this has no negative impact. However, if the applicant is, for example, a sex offender, an abuser of the helpless, a violent offender, or someone whose offenses are significant, there is sometimes a"policy" decision by the President, the Minister of Justice, or the State Attorney's Office not to grant pardons to perpetrators of such offenses. In the case of a prisoner who is already serving his sentence, an opinion is requested from the Prison Service regarding the prisoner's behavior toward his fellow prisoners and toward the prison institution in which he is imprisoned.
The Pardons Department also requests a health report on the person seeking pardon, both regarding their health and mental state, with the age of the applicant also having significance. If it is a person who has contributed greatly to the country, such as a discharged soldier who contributed greatly in a military operation or war - this is taken into consideration.
Welfare officials are asked to provide a test report that maps the social situation of the convict or his family members. If the person is a single breadwinner, for example, or if his spouse or child is in a complicated social or health situation, and the person's release will help the family - this is taken into account. In addition, it is also checked through the enforcement authority if the pardon applicant has financial debts to the state, fines or other sanctions.
In addition, the Pardons Department collects legal information about the practice in similar cases: How has the state legally handled offenses of this type? What is its policy regarding pardons for specific offenses? What were the legal precedents? At the same time, the Attorney General's Office will provide information about the legal status of the case itself, and from a legal perspective, the applicant must be a convicted offender, have confessed to his criminal acts - and promise not to repeat them.
However, most of these components do not correspond with Prime Minister Netanyahu's pardon case: he has not been convicted in a final verdict, his trial is still ongoing, and he may be acquitted, he has not admitted anything so far, not even as part of his pardon application, he has no criminal record, he has reasonable health problems for a person of his age, his family is not in need, he has no criminal record, and he does not need rehabilitation.
The prosecution's opinion may be that Netanyahu is not entitled to a pardon because he is requesting a request that undermines equality before the law - both because of its grounds and because it is precedential - and the question is whether this is a case that deviates from past precedents that affect every other citizen.
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