Last update - 00:00 18/07/2007
Cabinet pulls bill to delay supervision of sex offenders
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
The cabinet Wednesday withdrew a proposed bill intended to delay a law requiring supervision of sex offenders living in the community.
The move followed strong objection to the bill from both coalition and opposition camps.
As Haaretz reported Wednesday, the cabinet wanted to expedite the bill's enactment before
recessing next week. This would have postponed by a year the implementation of the second part
of the law protecting the public from sex offenders, which will come into effect on October 1.
Consequently, hundreds of sex offenders convicted of child molestation would have been freed
without supervision.
"Anyone voting for this law is knowingly spilling blood," said MK Zevulun Orlev (National
Union-National Religious Party) in the Knesset debate on Tuesday.
Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, chairman of the National Council for the Child, who initiated the bill to supervise sex offenders more than eight years ago, engaged in marathon talks with MKs in the last two days to persuade them to thwart putting off the law's implementation.
He praised the cabinet's decision Wednesday and said he hoped it would make preparations to
implement the next part of the law in the two months until October.
The first part applies to sex offenders who molested adults and had completed or were about to
complete serving prison terms. The second part is to apply the supervision to convicted child
molesters as well.