חוק לתיקון פקודת בתי הסוהר (מס' 54 והוראת שעה), התשע"ט-2018Law to Amend the Prisons Ordinance (No. 54 and temporary provision), 2018 · automatic translation · suggest a correction

Official summary of the law (Knesset)

The Law to Amend the Prisons Ordinance (No. 54 and Temporary Provision), 2018 was passed in its second and third readings on 5 November 2018. The law is part of a series of measures taken by the State in order to respond to the Supreme Court's ruling in HCJ 1892/14 the Association for Civil Rights in Israel et al. v. the Minister of Public Security et al., in which it was determined that the living space of prisoners in prisons must be increased. The law is based on the administrative release mechanism currently existing in the Prisons Ordinance, and grants the Prisons Commissioner the authority to release prisoners before the end of their imprisonment term, in order to ease overcrowding in prisons. The approved law establishes, as a temporary provision for three years, that the maximum periods of administrative release shall be increased, in order to further ease overcrowding. Thus, for example: a prisoner sentenced to a term of 12 months imprisonment shall be entitled to administrative release of 12 weeks before the end of his imprisonment term, instead of 3 weeks currently; a prisoner sentenced to a term of 3 years imprisonment shall be entitled to administrative release of 21 weeks instead of 7 weeks currently; and a prisoner sentenced to 10 years imprisonment shall be entitled to administrative release of 30 weeks instead of 21 weeks currently. It was also determined that the Commissioner shall have the authority to increase the periods set out in the law by an additional two weeks. In any case, the law provides that a prisoner who has not yet completed at least half of his imprisonment term shall not be released under administrative release. It was further determined, regarding a prisoner who violated the conditions of his community service assignment and was consequently sent to prison, that for the purpose of calculating the administrative release period, the remainder of his imprisonment shall be calculated according to the remainder of the actual imprisonment term and not according to the sentence period imposed on him. Finally, it was determined that the expansions of administrative releases under the law shall not apply to security prisoners.

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