A pardon is a government decision that allows a person to be exempted from some or all of the legal consequences of a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction. [1] [2] The Supreme Court has ruled that Congress cannot generally limit the president`s pardon power. In Ex parte Garland, the Court noted that “the President`s power [to pardon] is not subject to legislative review. Congress cannot limit the effect of its pardon or exclude any category of offenders from its practice. The gracious privilege of mercy resting therein cannot be restricted by any legal restriction. 109 Consistent with this broad wording, the Court subsequently rejected attempts by Congress after the Civil War to limit the effect of pardons granted to those who aided the Confederate cause to their right to restitution for confiscated property,110 stating that “the legislature cannot change the effect of such a pardon, Nor can the executive branch change the law.” 111 More recently, in rejecting the proposal, the Court recalled that a condition attached to pardon must be allowed by law, emphasizing that “the power of clemency derives solely from the Constitution, and not from any legislative regulation, and. it may not be modified, reduced or diminished by Congress.” 112 Pardons and conversions are not a substitute for comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system, but clemency can be used to address systemic deficiencies in the absence of legislative change. More recently, in 2014, President Barack Obama launched an initiative to pardon people serving long prison sentences under outdated criminal laws. Overall, President Obama pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 1,900 people, most of whom would have received much lighter sentences had they been charged with the same crime today. For this reason, state-level prosecutions, in addition to the other limitations discussed in this report, are beyond the scope of presidential pardons and may indirectly serve as a check on federal power (assuming they are otherwise legal). See, for example, Devlin Barrett & Matt Zapotosky, Manafort Indicted in New York State, Charges That Didn`t Fall Outside Trump`s Pardon Power, Wash. Post (March 13, 2019), www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/manafort-indicted-in-new-york-state-charges-that-fall-outside-trumps-pardon-power/2019/03/13/c5188cd4-45ae-11e9-90f0-0ccfeec87a61_story.html (referring to government fraud allegations “as a kind of insurance policy to prosecute a possible pardon from the president,” but highlighting a potential double jeopardy problem).

A person may apply for a pardon if they were convicted as an adult of a crime committed in Canada or an offence under a federal law or regulation, or if they were convicted of a crime committed in another country and transferred to Canada under the Transfer of Offenders Act or the International Transfer of Offenders Act. Non-Canadian citizens are not eligible for a Canadian pardon unless they have been convicted of a crime in Canada. The legal effect of limited forms of pardon such as commutations is very clear: the criminal sentence is reduced “in whole or in part”, but reparation “does not change the fact of the conviction, does not imply innocence or does not remove the civil obstacles that apply to the convicted person following the criminal conviction”. 86 However, the legal meaning of a full pardon has changed over time. While early cases suggested that a pardon eliminates any legal culpability of the offender and effectively erases the crime from existence, recent jurisprudence suggests that a pardon merely quashes the sentence for the offence, without addressing the guilt of the recipient or other consequences arising from the underlying conduct. Assuming that this is a valid legislative purpose, the question would arise as to whether pardon decision documents are nevertheless protected from disclosure by executive privilege.