The minister of justice has submitted a new bill that would enable the president of the state to wield his power of clemency over sanctions cast by professional tribunals; another bill submitted would allow appeals courts to add prison terms to convictions.
A few hours before her flagship Terrorism Law was approved in the Knesset on Wednesday, Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked submitted a new bill seeking to expand the president’s pardoning powers to include the sanctions of disciplinary tribunals. The Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs will debate the bill on Sunday.
As it currently stands, the president of the state can grant clemency to those who have been criminally convicted. He can overturn a conviction or shorten the prison term of someone who has been convicted by a court of law. Shaked’s bill would add those convicted by disciplinary tribunals to the president’s purview.
If the bill is approved, the president would be able to wield his power of clemency to shorten the sanctions sentenced by the various professional disciplinary tribunals established for different professions—lawyers, doctors, etc.—and which are entitled to regulate their professions and grant or revoke professional licenses.
An additional bill to be debated by the Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs would allow a court of appeal to impose prison sentences, even if another type of punishment has already been applied.
For instance, if someone found guilty of a crime were to begin performing community service as sentenced and an appeal were filed regarding his case asking to sentence him to prison, the appeals court would be entitled to do so while taking into consideration the time that he had performed community service.
This is in contrast to the current system by which, once a sentence has begun to be performed as set down by the court of first instance, the appeals court cannot change the type of sanction.
In the field of appeals regarding closing cases, a complainant who files an appeal against closing a case more than 30 days later as prescribed by law, shall be entitled to ask for leave to appeal from the Appeals Department at the Ministry of Justice, in addition to from the attorney general and the state’s attorney, who currently deal with many hundreds of appeals each year, which leads to a delay in examining applications.
As reported by Ynetnews