In accordance with its understanding of the court's words, the Respondent, in its notice of September 26, 2024, announced its unconditional withdrawal of its request to convict the Applicant of the offenses of fraudulent rape and fraudulent act. The Respondent further requested that the Court make use of its authority in accordance with the Article 216 of the Criminal Procedure Law and will convict the applicant of the offense of assault. The Applicant, in response, submitted a supplementary argument regarding the use of the authority under Article 216 of the Criminal Procedure Law.
By mistake, which led to a glitch regarding the presentation of the court's proposal at the end of the hearing of September 18, 2024, the respondent's position was understood as accepting the proposed arrangement (i.e., that the respondent's agreement to retract its request to convict the applicant of the offenses of rape by fraud and indecent act by fraud is conditional on the applicant's consent to be convicted of the offense of assault). In the same way, the applicant's response was understood as a rejection of the proposed arrangement.
The judgment in the appeal was given in the wake of the aforesaid and on the basis of the erroneous assumption that what was proposed by the court was an agreed arrangement, in respect of which no agreement was reached by the parties, and therefore the judgment should be given in disregard of the proposed arrangement and the respondent's position on it.
- Although I doubt the extent to which this is meaningful, I consider myself obligated, with regret (and this is not a word of politeness, since I am responsible for the mishap caused by no less than any of my friends), to disagree with my colleague, Justice Stein, who attributes the mishap that arose in the matter of the court's proposal at the end of the hearing of September 18, 2024, to the Respondent's misunderstanding at that hearing.
Unfortunately, a perusal of the minutes of the hearing (which, it should be emphasized, is a transcript that was recorded and transcribed) shows that it was certainly possible to understand what was said, as it was said by the court, in the manner in which they were understood by the respondent.