New bill: Allow judges to deny potential terrorists' pardons
In light of third round of Palestinian prisoner release, MKs Shaked, Tzur put forward plan to give courts option of denying clemency to murderers at sentencing. Bill aimed to 'fix injustice', address criminal charges as well
At the conclusion of the third prisoner release Tuesday morning, members of Knesset were already trying to form legislation to thwart any further releases.
A bill proposal, formed by Knesset Member Ayelet Shaked of Habayit Hayehudi and MK David Tzur of Hatnua, will give judges the option of removing the possibility of any future pardon of the culprit, already at the time of the sentencing.
Coalition head MK Yariv Levin (Likud) and Yisrael Beiteinu faction leader Robert Ilatov also signed on the proposal.
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The bill is meant in theory to prevent any future prisoner releases, but the MKs have insisted that the current wording of the bill applies to any "despicable murder," even those occurring on criminal background.
"In recent years, the State of Israel has released a large number of terrorists as part of prisoner exchange deals," the MKs said in a statement regarding the proposal. "This reality has brought us to the absurd situation of terrorists, who committed murder as part of their struggle against the State of Israel, being released long before they have served their punishment."
The statement also said that the proposal was meant to fix the problem of terrorists being released due to all sorts of internal and external pressures.
"Judges can decide that whoever has been proven guilty of murder on a nationalistic background can be sentenced to life without parole or pardoning from the president of the State." It also said the proposal will allow for very severe cases, such as murder of children, to not have their sentences commuted at all.
Shaked told Ynet the law would "fix injustice and not let murderers and low-life terrorists be released in exchanges. The proposal has support in the coalition."
