Pardon as a Specific Manner of Extinguishing Penalties

Abstract

Pardon is one of the manners of extinguishing penalties, respectively the creation of legal situations which impede the criminal prosecution as well as imposing and application of punishments against the perpetrators of criminal offences. It represents an act issued by the President (so is in Kosovo), respectively the Government. In fact, by means of pardon specifically designated persons listed by name are granted exemption from complete or partial exemption from the execution of a punishment, the substitution of punishment with a less severe punishment or a suspended sentence or the expunging of punishment. Pardon is an old institution of criminal law. It is known in Roman Law and Middle Ages Law. Also contemporary criminal laws recognize pardon as a criminal-law tool which precludes imposing the punishment, or the imposed punishment is pardoned as whole or partially. In Kosovo the pardon issue has been regulated by Law on Pardon entered into force in 2008. Pardon manifests a range of characteristics and its existence and granting is determined by special reasons. For granting pardon is conducted a special procedure. Such procedure shall be initiated according to official duty (ex-officio) and by the initiative of the convicted person or his family members. The pardon shall be granted for all criminal offences despite of their gravity, excluding criminal offences against the constitutional order and security of the Republic of Kosovo and criminal offences against humanity and values protected by international law. In this short scientific paper is dealt with the meaning, characteristics, importance and the procedure of pardon implementation as well as some of the basic issues of theory-practice nature referring to this criminal-law institution. By preparing this article I have used historical-legal, comparative, dogmatic, statistical methods etc.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s5p172