Amnesty - Improper Uses of The Term

Improper Uses of The Term

• Describing a change in a law which renders innocent actions which previously broke the law. For example, raising the road speed limit from 55 to 70 is not 'amnesty', even though those who have always driven at 65 may now do so innocently; this is simply changing the law, which is the job of lawmakers. Genuine amnesty is where a particular group of lawbreakers are pardoned for past violations which would otherwise be subject to prosecution.

• Describing as amnesty the imposition of lesser sentences or punishments that are not "more than pardon, inasmuch as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the offense." This is, rather, a commutation of sentence.

• Often wrongly or purposely used by politicians and/or journalists to denote cases of pardon where offenses are not stricken from the record and individuals proclaimed innocent. Instead, those individuals receive some lesser reprimand or sentence in response to an admission of guilt. Otherwise defined as an act of leniency but not amnesty, per se.