"An offense has been committed and before a final judgment is given in respect of it, there is a change in its definition or responsibility for it, or with respect to the punishment prescribed for it, the lenient legislation will apply to the matter."
In our case, the date of the commission of the offense is February 27, 2018, i.e., before the entry into force of Amendment 137 to the Law, and therefore it is necessary to examine, in accordance with section 25(b) of the Amendment Law, whether the new arrangement set forth in the amendment constitutes a lenient law for the defendants, and in such a case, the new arrangement should be applied to them.
In the framework of Amendment 137 to the Law, the offense of premeditated murder was abolished, and in its place two main alternatives were determined, which are relevant to our case: one – a "basic" murder offense set forth in section 300(a) of the Law, alongside which a sentence of life imprisonment was determined as the maximum punishment; and the second – the offense of "murder under aggravated circumstances" as set forth in section 301a(a) of the law, along with which a life sentence is prescribed as a mandatory punishment. On the other hand, alongside the offense of premeditated murder attributed to the defendants in the indictment, according to section 300(a)(2) of the law in its old version, a mandatory life sentence was prescribed; and the possibility of imposing a lighter sentence than life imprisonment was given only in exceptional circumstances detailed in section 300A of the law in its old version, which are not relevant to our case.
It can be said that in general, the new arrangement of the offenses of manslaughter includes both more stringent provisions than the law in its old version, and more lenient provisions. Thus, for example, the "basic" crime of murder today also includes involuntary manslaughter, which in the past established the offense of manslaughter, which carries a sentence of 20 years in prison; On the other hand, today it is possible to impose a lesser sentence than life imprisonment on a person convicted of the "basic" murder offense, which does not involve aggravating circumstances, in contrast to the old arrangement, which in such a case also set a mandatory life sentence. However, the examination of whether the new law constitutes a lenient law is not a general examination, but rather the court must examine the new law in accordance with the facts that were proven before it in the concrete case.