"It is not easy for the court to reject a plea bargain that is brought for its approval, in view of the existence of weighty considerations that support it, first and foremost the concern that the status of plea bargains will be eroded and the certainty that they will be agreed upon by the defendant who signs the plea bargain, and as a result – with the desired purposes that they achieve... Much has been written about the advantages of the plea bargain and its proper role, in appropriate cases, in the framework of criminal enforcement.... These advantages, which benefit both the defendant and the public interest, were discussed by this court many years ago. The defendant is assured of his conviction and sentence, and all this in the framework of a relatively short proceeding. In addition, the public interest is also realized, since plea bargains make it possible to increase enforcement and conviction of criminals in society; Realize the principles of efficiency, thereby directing the resources of the law enforcement systems to other important goals."
In practice, when the court examines the plea bargain, it examines the considerations by the prosecution, according to the criteria of reasonableness, and intervenes only where the court believes that there was a material flaw in the prosecution's considerations (a certain case, expanded at p. 611). Therefore, as a rule, and out of a broad discretion to the prosecution, the court respects the plea bargains.
Mann, Criminal-Administrative Procedure, argues that because of these rulings, intervention in plea bargains is similar to interference with administrative discretion, and reduces judicial supervision of plea bargains (see also Raanan on this matter).
Giladi, The Doctrine of Administrative Audit in Criminal Justice, Sefer Eliyahu Matza, 529 (Aharon Barak, Ayala Procaccia, Sharon Hans and Raanan Giladi, eds., 2015).
On the other hand, there are those who argue that broad judicial review should be preferred to plea bargains. Thus, for example, Mordechai Kremnitzer and Liat Levanon, "Judicial Review of Plea Bargains, in the Wake of C.A. 1958/98 Anonymous v. State of Israel," [published in Nevo] in: Trends in Evidence Law and Criminal Procedure: A Collection of Articles in Honor of Prof. Eliyahu Harnon, 289 (Anat Horowitz and Mordechai Kremnitzer eds., 20099). President (ret.) Meir Shamgar, in his article: "Plea Bargains" in: Sefer Gabriel Bach, 219 (David Hahn, Dana Cohen-Lekach and Michael Bach, eds., 2011), criticizes the fact that in practice the rule has become that the courts are not permitted to intervene in plea bargains and are in fact notaries of agreements (ibid., at p. 222). President Shamgar does not dispute that in many cases there is room to approve plea bargains. However, his main argument in the article is that (ibid.): "This reality has become the façade of everything and a daily thing, and for that I regret... The result of this... It is the lack of a relationship, to a significant extent, between the agreed and proper punishment, and it was sufficient to justify the postponement of a plea bargain when the lack of attitude is conspicuous."