THE PARDON IS FOR THE PUNISHMENT NOT FOR THE CRIME

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a lawyer friend of mine. He said that a crime cannot be pardoned. Only the sentencing and punishment is pardoned. 

How can anyone, even the king pardon the crime of murder? Supposing someone really committed a murder, without any doubts at all, after which he was tried in Court, found guilty of murder and then punished accordingly. Or say he also confessed to committing the murder. You cannot bring the murder victim back from the dead.

Or a man rapes a 14 year old girl and makes her pregnant. She later gives birth to a child and the DNA proves that the man is the biological father. The charge of rape against him is proven beyond any doubt.  You cannot undo the rape or reverse the birth of the child.

Then lets say the murderer and the rapist both appealed for a Pardon and were granted a pardon. That pardon will only be to either free them from a jail sentence, free them from a death sentence or whatever was the punishment. That pardon will be specifically to absolve the convicted murderer and the rapist from undergoing any more punishment. 

But the pardon DOES NOT and CANNOT absolve the two criminals of committing the murder and the rape. The pardon cannot undo the murder or the rape. The murder victim was already dead and buried in the grave. The rape victim had already given birth to a child.

The Pardon cannot say, 'No you did not kill that man'. It cannot say  'No you did not rape that 14 year old girl'.  That would become an ACQUITTAL. The Pardons Board has absolutely no way of determining an ACQUITTAL. It is also not their area of expertise.

Only an Appeals Court (aka a higher court) can order a retrial, re-hear the appeal  etc with arguments by the lawyers all over again and then decide to ACQUIT the murderer and the rapist or to uphold their earlier convictions.

SO PLEASE BEAR THIS IN MIND VERY CAREFULLY.

A Pardon does not absolve a convicted criminal from having committed the crime. 
A Pardon only absolves a convicted criminal from undergoing further punishment.   
You are still a criminal but you are pardoned from undergoing further punishment.

There are TWO examples in this country.

1. Many years ago there was a case where a Putera Mahkota of a state shot and killed a man.    He was arrested and tried in Court, found guilty and convicted of causing the man's death. (The Putera Mahkota was charged and found guilty of manslaughter). The Judge who found him guilty would later become the Lord President of the Federal Court as well as become the Sultan of another State and also later become the Yang di Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

The Putera Mahkota was sentenced to jail. But the Putera Mahkota did not serve his jail sentence because he was pardoned by his own father who was the Sultan of his State (where the crime was also committed).

So the Sultan's pardon did not (and could not) absolve his son from committing the crime. The victim was already dead and buried. The Sultan's pardon only absolved his son from undergoing his jail sentence.

SO PLEASE BEAR THIS IN MIND VERY CAREFULLY.

2. In 1982 there was a case where a high ranking member of the UMNO party, a  Cabinet Minister was charged and convicted of shooting and killing a man.   He was found guilty as charged and sentenced to DEATH. Later he was granted a Pardon whereby the sentence of death was commuted to life imprisonment.  Again the pardon did not absolve him of the crime of murder. Neither did it fully absolve him of the punishment. The pardon commuted the sentence of death to a sentence of life in prison. 

A PARDON DOES NOT AND CANNOT WIPE AWAY THE CONVICTION OF THE CRIME. 

A PARDON ONLY ABSOLVES OR REDUCES THE PUNISHMENT FOR THE CONVICTED CRIMINAL.

PLEASE BEAR THIS IN MIND VERY CAREFULLY.

So the question that arises now is can a convicted criminal who has had his sentence pardoned stand for elections LESS THAN FIVE YEARS after release from jail?

Because only the sentence and the punishment have been pardoned. The crime and the conviction still remain.

Neither the King, the Sultan nor the Pardons Board can pardon the crime of which a criminal has been convicted by a Court of Law.

They can only pardon the punishment. For example an early release from jail.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.