The limits of amnesty

Abstract

An amnesty is legitimate if it is a law enacted by a democratic legislator, if its scope of application is nondiscriminatory and if, considering its need and its cost, it is not disproportionate. As for the proportionality: amnesty for the crimes of torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions is a violation of fundamental rights to be free from such attacks, as these rights incorporate in their essential content the criminal prosecution of their breaches and the legal protection from them; this cost could become acceptable in consideration to the significant democratic gains that amnesty seeks, unless it is a radical amnesty —that is, an amnesty for all the acts of repression or that extends to the leaders of such repression—, because in this case amnesty amounts to a waiver of crime prevention.