Only the president can pardon prisoners who participated in the SVO

Pardon is the exclusive power of the President of the Russian Federation, enshrined in the Constitution. Each convict has the right to ask the head of state for mercy, and he “implements” it, that is, he makes a decision on each request.

Article 85 of the Criminal Code specifies: pardon decisions are always personal in nature, and a presidential decree on this matter can either exempt from further serving a sentence, or mitigate an already imposed punishment without completely canceling it. In addition, a citizen who filed a petition for pardon, if he has already served his sentence, can have his conviction removed.

As for the criminal record, the question is not idle. As a general rule, for probationers it is repaid after the expiration of the probationary period, for those sentenced to punishments not related to deprivation of liberty – one year after serving the sentence.

For those who were sent to a colony for crimes of small and medium gravity – three years after serving the sentence, if the crime was serious – 8 years after serving the sentence, and if especially serious – after 10 years.

Until the conviction is removed, it imposes certain restrictions on a person, such as prohibitions to engage in some type of activity. Corrupts the questionnaire. In addition, the electoral legislation stipulates a ban on nomination as a candidate in elections of any level, from municipal to federal, for those convicted of a number of crimes, even of moderate severity, for several years after the removal of a criminal record…

And now let’s see how the pardon procedure looked and looks like in a normal situation. Until 2001, that is, under President Yeltsin, there was a Pardon Commission under him, which included 13 people, 7 of them were lawyers, the rest were well-known public figures. All petitions of convicts from all over the country were sent to this commission, which considered them with the help of the apparatus, and put ready-made documents with recommendations on the president’s desk. And he signed the relevant decrees – or did not sign.

Pardoning in the 90s gained momentum every year, and in 2000, for example, an act of humanism was shown in relation to more than 12 thousand people. A significant part of those who obtained mercy were convicted of serious crimes, which was not very pleasing to experts and society … At the end of 2000, President Putin dismissed his pardon commission (“they only regretted, but you need not only regret,” he explained his decision with these words) , and the procedure for filing and considering petitions has seriously changed.

Instead of one central commission, their own commissions were created in each region, petitions and documents on prisoners got there, recommendations were made there – whether or not to pardon this particular citizen. A significant part of the petitions were eliminated already at this stage, and the fate of those who got a chance was decided by the Presidential Administration, where the documents were checked again, and only then they lay down on the president’s table. The number of annual pardons immediately and sharply decreased – at first to about three dozen a year, and then even steeper. A certain increase – again up to several dozen pardons a year – happened during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, and in the last two terms of Vladimir Putin, the fingers of one hand were usually enough to count the number of annual pardons.

Human rights activists criticized the new procedure for excessive bureaucracy, and the issue of improving it was raised at almost every traditional December meeting of the President with his Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.

In 2018, for example, the then head of the Council, Mikhail Fedotov, proposed creating, in addition to the regional pardon commissions, a federal commission, which could be formed by the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Tatyana Moskalkova, so that the regional commissions would send their proposals there, and they would be considered with the participation of human rights activists, and not just Kremlin officials.

Vladimir Putin responded by saying that there were “a lot of complaints” about the commission of the 1990s, “it was possible to start attracting members of this commission for lobbying”, and therefore they switched to another, more democratic, in his opinion, order. But if it doesn’t work very well, “let’s see,” the president agreed. And he instructed his administration, together with the Ministry of Justice, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation and the governors, to “consider the issue of improving the procedure for the formation of pardon commissions” in the regions and submit proposals to this end by the summer of 2019.

The result of the work done was the signing of a decree in December 2020, which somewhat changed the procedure for considering issues of pardon and clarified some details. In May 2021, some changes were made to this decree again, and at the moment the procedure looks like this.

Not only convicts have the right to ask for pardon, but also those who have already served their sentences and have an unexpunged and outstanding conviction, as well as some other categories of criminals. With respect to persistent violators of the regime or those who previously fell under amnesty or pardon, but again violated the law, pardon is not applied “as a rule”, which means: in certain situations, at the will of the President, both recidivists and malicious violators of the regime in the colonies on his mercy can count.

The convict applies to the president with a petition for pardon, the administration of the colony registers the paper and sends it with a number of documents to the prosecutor, and already he – to the regional pardon commission. Having reviewed the documents in a timely manner, the commission sends them to the governor with his recommendations, and he, in turn, takes out his own and sends them to the Kremlin.

When considering a petition for pardon, the following points are “taken into account”: the nature of the crime committed by the convict, his behavior in the colony, the term served, whether he compensated the damage to the victims, what his state of health, marital status, whether his relatives or lawyers. And the opinion of victims of crimes or their relatives about the possibility of pardon is also being clarified …

The President of the Russian Federation agrees and signs the decree – or disagrees and rejects the request for pardon.

An important point: there is no mention of the obligation to admit guilt to convicts in a petition for pardon in the Regulations on the work of regional commissions. But President Putin himself, judging by a number of his statements, believes that an admission of guilt is still necessary.

It is worth noting that all these usual orders and procedures can be violated (and have been violated more than once) when making decisions on the so-called. “political” pardons. And this is normal: we said that pardoning is the exclusive power of the president under the Constitution, whoever he wants, he pardons …

For example, at the end of 2013, in a petition for pardon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky did not admit his guilt – he asked to be given the opportunity to say goodbye to his dying mother, and the President of the Russian Federation signed this petition, later calling its contents “an indirect admission of guilt.”

And the Ukrainian Nadezhda Savchenko in 2016 did not ask for pardon at all – in order to let her go, Vladimir Putin had enough of the request of the relatives of the dead Russian journalists. Savchenko was then exchanged for two Russians, whom, by the way, the then President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko also pardoned, changing the procedure usually adopted in such cases …

The current situation is not normal. Therefore, if in a few months we suddenly find out that the number of those pardoned in Russia has increased dramatically compared to the current zero, according to MK, we can conclude that the political decision regarding the convicts – participants in the military special operation was indeed taken, and given by them the promise has been fulfilled.