A special amnesty for 300 arrested soon



[ad_1]

The Discriminatory Public Ministry completed its review of the special pardon file, expressed its opinion on it and referred it to the Amnesty Committee headed by Judge Claude Karam, who in turn will transmit it to the Minister of Justice, Marie Claude Najm, so that A list of the convicts and detainees arrested for their release is sent to the President of the Republic, Michel Aoun. He approves the list or excludes it, and returns it to the minister to prepare a final decree to sign and issue.

It is not too long to double this file, which condemns the Corona pandemic by putting it into practice. In any case, according to Najm, it is not a political archive for either side to invest. It is justified by the epidemic and the fear that it will reach the jails and spread among the prisoners. No one is likely to be released, and they have close to 300 convicts and have a file related to crime, terrorism or drug trafficking, or a death sentence has been passed against him. He was subjected to a few criteria described by Najm as targets, in light of this, he classified detainees and detainees into three categories:
First, those who finished their sentences and are presumed to have graduated, but are still arrested because they were unable to pay the fine for their release.
Again, convicts whose sentences remain in less than four months.
Third, people with chronic diseases such as cancer, loss of the immune system and other older people. They are the first candidates to lose their lives if the pandemic enters prisons.
On the sidelines of the Supreme Defense Council meeting, Najem received from the Director General of the Internal Security Forces, Major General Imad Othman, a list of 9,500 prisoners and detainees in Lebanese prisons. This number has decreased since the end of last March to 8,256 prisoners due to the evacuation of several of them and the conduct of remote interrogations with another number. In addition, those whose terms have expired have ended, and are being discharged. However, the decision to release those included on the list rests with the President of the Republic, who has the constitutional authority to issue a special amnesty.
It is not uncommon to issue a pardon for large numbers of hundreds of convicts or detainees. For the most part, the President of the Republic applies this authority to a few people, each in a separate decree. However, when dealing extensively with this benefit, the exceptional situation in the country is taken into account, the difficulty of arriving soon, despite the continuation of the meetings, the House of Representatives issued a general amnesty law due to the multiplicity of proposals that have reached five so far, and an acute political division that blurred the parliamentary blocks between Supporter and opponent, and in an important aspect of the sectarian division in this or that team. Add that those who are covered by the amnesty and their commission are completely different from those covered by the special amnesty. And therefore it will take a long time to agree.
However, the special amnesty decree revives the memory, within the scope of the exclusive authority of the President of the Republic, by recalling the decrees granting Lebanese citizenship issued in the hundreds first on the eve of the conclusion of the former president’s mandate Michel Suleiman, and then in the second year of Aoun’s term, after which protests erupted, but were neglected. At that time, in hundreds of citizenship ceremonies, an unpleasant odor reached the nose of large funds that benefited from the presidents, ministers and leaders that included the names given to the Lebanese citizens, among them they wanted and fled their countries. In fact, granting citizenship a constitutional privilege to the President of the Republic, similar to the special decree of forgiveness, which is also a constitutional concession, for a fundamental difference in that the President grants citizenship to a foreigner who provides clear services to Lebanon. and, in turn, he receives the privilege, while the special decree of forgiveness is related to purely humanitarian reasons.

Unlike a general amnesty, a special pardon does not erase the criminal offense.

The amnesty decree’s approach is valid only for the purpose of limiting authority to the head of state. But to give it the widest margin is to include the largest number of beneficiaries of the private decree.
According to the facts highlighted by the Minister of Justice when establishing the standards for the special amnesty decree:
1- They tend to launch them in three separate decrees, with each category of convicts included in a separate decree.
2 – His release did not take into account sectarian affiliation as a goal in itself, but rather the adoption of a classification of the three groups so that he becomes a candidate for amnesty for all who meet the criteria in question.
3- Contrary to the amnesty law issued by the House of Representatives, and it is sufficient to announce a general amnesty for the authors of crimes at a stage related mainly to civil disputes, as happened in 1991 or a political agreement, as happened in 2005, the special amnesty is based on determining the names of those who include and against whom judgments have been issued. They are limited exclusively to them, while the general amnesty will probably include not only those convicted, but also those who disappear from justice and flee. This is not provided for by the special decree of forgiveness.
4- The mere issuance of a general amnesty by the House of Representatives leads to the disappearance of the criminal nature of the convicts. Therefore, it is closer to a draft of what they committed, while a special pardon does not eliminate this trait, but reduces the punishment or part of it, and justifies the reason for dismissing them for humanitarian or health reasons, without eliminate the criminal trait. Therefore, the importance of the special decree lies in its issuance of the exclusive authority of the President of the Republic as an exceptional measure.

[ad_2]