Minister reportedly backs Netanyahu pardon in position paper submitted to president

Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, acting in place of Justice Minister Yariv Levin, on Tuesday submitted his position paper to President Isaac Herzog on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon, reportedly backing the move.

Eliyahu did not publicly announce his position, but the Haaretz daily quoted from the paper and said that he had concluded that Netanyahu should be pardoned to “enable the healing of the rifts” between the various groups within the nation.

Netanyahu is on trial for corruption in a long-running case that has roiled the country. Netanyahu and his supporters allege he is the target of  a politically motivated witch hunt. His opponents accuse him of trying to undermine the legal system in a bid to stay in power.

“I held a long series of consultations with intellectuals, security officials, rabbis, reservists who returned from the front, and jurists and influencers of public opinion,” Eliyahu reportedly wrote.

“I studied judgments and relevant legal materials concerning case law in Israel, as well as comparative law across the world — all in order to reach an accurate and correct decision,” the minister’s position paper read, according to Haaretz.

A statement put out by Herzog’s office in response thanked Eliyahu for the document, and added that he will not be swayed in his decision by external pressure “from any direction” — an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump, who has harshly criticized Herzog for failing to immediately grant the pardon.

Usually, the justice minister submits the position paper, but Levin delegated the matter to Eliyahu due to a possible conflict of interest.

Eliyahu, a far-right minister, strongly indicated in several posts on social media in recent weeks that he favors issuing a pardon.

Together with his own position paper, Eliyahu also submitted that of the Justice Ministry’s pardons department, which has said that it cannot recommend issuing the pardon since it found Netanyahu’s request did not meet the relevant criteria.

According to a report by the Ynet news site earlier in the month, the pardons department determined that it was difficult to grant Netanyahu a pardon since his trial is ongoing and he has not yet been convicted, and he did not admit guilt or express remorse for his actions in his pardon request.

All the documentation submitted by Eliyahu has been passed to the president’s legal adviser, Michal Tzuk. Tzuk will evaluate the position papers and then draw up her own position paper, which she will submit to Herzog, who will make the final decision.

“Any attempt to influence the president’s decision-making process in any way, from any direction, will not affect the president’s judgment and will not change a thing. The president will act solely in accordance with the law, his conscience, and the good of the country,” Herzog’s office stated.

Pardon requests before a conviction are highly unusual, but there is precedent for such pardons in certain circumstances, and the issue has come before the High Court.

In 1986, the court determined, in what has become known as the Barzilai ruling, that pardons in such situations could only be issued “when it was made clear that the applicants admitted having committed the criminal acts for which they asked to be pardoned,” which Netanyahu has not done.

The rule of thumb in administrative law is that the position adopted by professional officials — in this case, the pardons department and the president’s legal adviser — is the one that should be adopted by the decision-making official.

The president is, however, entitled to ignore those positions.

Ahead of the submission, the liberally inclined Movement for Quality Government watchdog group urged Eliyahu to adopt the professional opinion of the Justice Ministry’s pardons department against the pardon.

Netanyahu filed his pardon request last November, even though his trial on corruption charges in three cases has yet to conclude.

He is standing trial on one charge of bribery, as well as three charges of fraud and breach of trust, after being indicted in 2020.