A five-judge Supreme Court panel has unanimously rejected two aspects of an appeal against the plea bargain that was reached last year with ex-President Moshe Katzav. A third aspect - namely, the request to repeal the most controversial aspects of the plea bargain - was rejected by a 3-2 margin.
Several groups had appealed against the plea bargain, claiming that the mild nature of the agreement does not jibe with the severity of the original accusations against Katzav, which included even rape. The minority position in favor of repealing the plea bargain was supported by Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch and Deputy Chief Justice Eliezer Rivlin. Justices Ayala Procaccia, Edmond Levi and Asher Gronis voted to allow the plea bargain to stand.
Surprisingly, Katzav's attorney Tzion Amir threatened that if the Court ruling implies that the ex-President is guilty of crimes categorized as "bearing disgrace," he might not accept the plea bargain.
According to the terms of the agreement reached nearly eight months ago by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and Katzav's lawyers, Katzav is to plead guilty to several charges of sexual harassment, pay a fine of 50,000 shekels to the women he is accused of harassing, and be sentenced to a probationary sentence.
Unanimous Ruling on Two Points, "Majority Rules" on the Third
In two issues, the Court ruled unanimously that Mazuz had acted correctly - namely, in giving the complainants sufficient opportunities to make their cases, and in dropping all charges brought by a woman who worked with Katzav in the President's Residence for lack of evidence. However, regarding a second complainant - a woman who worked with Katzav when he was Minister of Tourism - the panel was split, with the majority believing that there was no need to intervene in Mazuz's decision to reduce the charges based on the dearth of evidence.
The majority opinion in the 200-page ruling states, "Though there were faults in the way the Attorney General functioned in this matter, the appeals are to be rejected given the lack of any reason to intervene in his judgment... No illegality was proven in the way the agreement was reached."
The Movement for Quality in Government, one of the groups that appealed the plea bargain, announced that it would ask the Supreme Court to conduct yet another hearing on the matter.