The respondent's position, in the preliminary response, was that: "In the special and exceptional circumstances created in the present case, the petitioner has an alternative and more appropriate remedy for clarifying his claims, in the framework of a motion to annul the judgment that will be submitted to the panel that heard and ruled on the criminal appeal. The petitioner's arguments deserve to be heard and clarified, but the more appropriate procedure to do so in this exceptional case is a request to set aside a judgment, which will be heard by the court that heard and decided the appeal" (Section 2 of the preliminary response, and similarly worded in paragraph 13 of the preliminary response).
The Respondent further clarified that at that stage it does not express an opinion on the merits of the Applicant's arguments, since for this purpose it requires detail and clarification from the panel that gave the judgment in the appeal (paragraph 24 of the preliminary response).
The Applicant, in response, argued that a request for cancellation to be submitted to this Court can only be granted if the Respondent agrees to it, and in accordance with the Section 81(b) of the Courts Law [Consolidated Version], 5744-1984 (hereinafter: The Courts Law). Therefore, the Applicant argued that there is a point in filing such an application only to the extent that the Respondent clarifies that it agrees to the request for cancellation that will be filed, and as appears from its preliminary response, it is not willing to do so.
- On June 15, 2025, the court (Judge Kabub) issued a decision, according to which the proceedings in the petition would be suspended until after the applicant submitted, as part of the appeal file, a motion to annul the judgment, and a decision on such an application would be rendered.
A.4. The application before us
- On June 26, 2025, the Applicant filed the present application, in which he petitioned for the cancellation of the judgment given in the appeal (hereinafter and hereinafter: the Motion for Cancellation or the application in question).
Similar to the petition to the High Court of Justice, the request for annulment is also based on the argument that the respondent's announcement that she retracts her request to convict the applicant of the offenses of rape is tantamount to a retraction of the appeal, following which this court lacks the authority to convict the applicant of the offenses of rape.