Retrial in Israel: The Need for a Restart

Retrial in Israeli law occurs infrequently; consequently, the wrongfully convicted have little recourse to overturning their conviction and seeking exoneration. This chapter, co-written by Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer and Gal Harnik Blum, LLB., investigates Israeli law as it relates to retrial. The authors describe how, despite amendments to the law following the release of the Goldberg Report, which increased the grounds for the Supreme Court to allow a retrial to include the more flexible grounds of new evidence or the “miscarriage of justice” ground, it is unclear, if the new situation created by the law actually changed the reality of retrials. The authors believe these changes may have been short-lived and case law rulings illustrate decisions based on new evidence, rulings on “miscarriages of justice,” and rulings on the grounds of inadequate representation. In proffering several possible explanations for why few retrials continue to take place, the authors suggest solutions based on strengthening the dimension of independence in the critical stages of the retrial proceedings. Alongside those steps, they also support the need to establish a clear legal arrangement which will ensure the preservation of evidence gathered throughout the proceedings.