Former Netanyahu lawyer says president can’t pardon PM without an admission of guilt

Former Netanyahu lawyer says president can’t pardon PM without an admission of guilt

Former Netanyahu lawyer says president can’t pardon PM without an admission of guilt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formally requested a pardon from the country’s president over corruption charges.

Mr. Netanyahu has been on trial since 2020 after being indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The prime minister denies all charges.

And argues that the move to pardon him is in Israel’s national interest. The request comes after he insisted last month that he would not pardon

And protesters in Tel Aviv rallied outside the Israeli president’s private residence after US President Donald Trump wrote a letter to his Israeli counterpart

Urging him not to pardon the prime minister. For further analysis, I spoke to Dr. Ronit Lavin-Skinor, a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Law.

She says that if pardoned, the independence of the Israeli judiciary would be called into question and democratic stability would be threatened. He is asking the President of the State of Israel to drop the trial.

And there is only one way in which the President can drop the trial, and that is to pardon and convict Netanyahu before he is sentenced. And that is something that has never been done in the history of the State of Israel.

A person who is already on trial can be pardoned by the President before he is sentenced, and I will get to more on that in a moment. He is saying something very true.

And that is that being on trial and being the Prime Minister of the State of Israel are two things that cannot go together; in fact, that is the case. However, there was only one solution to this problem.

And that was to take time away from politics to deal with this trial, which would lead to serious charges against the Prime Minister. However, he has repeatedly chosen to go to the prime minister’s chair,

arguing that he is capable of doing both at the same time. Now he is arguing that he can no longer do that, stand trial, testify three times a week.

And run the state of Israel. And so he is saying to the nation, look, look, this doesn’t work. You like me, you love me, you want

Me to continue doing the wonderful job that I do as prime minister. This is the excellence that he is providing to the public, and to some extent, it is again a recognition that being under criminal trial is a great effort for an extraordinary person.

And unacceptable for the prime minister of the state of Israel. The question is how to resolve this issue while maintaining the rule of law and commitment to our democratic institutions, including Israel’s judiciary.

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He has not been convicted. Is this a problem when we are talking about pardons? Oh, our law allows the president to pardon criminals. Now, what does it mean to be a criminal?

Now it's one thing if the criminal was convicted in your area. That's clearly a case that meets the criteria for a criminal. And yet there was a case 40 years ago.

where members of the Shin Bet secret service in Israel were involved in wrongdoing, and they admitted to wrongdoing, and President Zein, who happens to be the father of the current president,

pardoned them before trial. So there's never been a case where a pardon was requested during the trial, and so we're in a complex.

Because we understand that these are extreme circumstances, but the radicalism of this case goes both ways. So we're not sure how the president should react, but it seems.

Although it's debatable that it's within his power to decide on this matter, because his decisions are subject to very little judicial review. And do you think Donald Trump's words will have any impact here?

Oh, this is a very complicated political situation. Oh, President Herzog has hinted in the past that if Netanyahu would step down, step down and leave politics, he might be willing to consider forgiving any wrongdoing.

But what Netanyahu has now brought to our President is a reluctance to admit that he did anything wrong and to ask for a pardon before the sentence and before the trial is over.

The political pressure on the President in these circumstances is enormous, and the fact that President Trump clearly stated this when he was here in October in the Knesset, and since then, I have asked President Terzok in a formal letter.

That he should take into account his request is providing significant political pressure, and so I am not sure. However, President Terzok also knows.

The majority of Israelis currently oppose the idea of ​​such a pardon. So, oh, that is a very difficult question, or the dilemma that he is facing now.

And I am sure that more pressure from Trump is on the way. Will the decision be even tougher?.