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amnesty
(redirected from amnesties)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Legal, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.45 sec.
amnesty (ăm`nəstē), in law, exemption from prosecution for criminal action. It signifies forgiveness and the forgetting of past actions. Amnesties are usually extended to a group of persons during a period of prolonged disorder or insurrection. The criminals are offered a promise of immunity from prosecution if they will abandon their unlawful activities. After a revolution or civil war the victorious side will often extend amnesty to the losers; e.g., the United States granted a qualified amnesty to the Confederate forces after the Civil War. An amnesty is distinguished from a pardon pardon, in law, exemption from punishment for a criminal conviction granted by the grace of the executive of a government. A general pardon to a class of persons guilty of the same offense (e.g., insurrection) is an amnesty .
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, which is an act of forgiveness after the criminal has already been convicted.

amnesty

In criminal law, a sovereign act of oblivion or forgetfulness (from Greek amnestia, “forgetfulness”) granted by a government, especially to a group of persons who are guilty of (usually political) crimes in the past. It is often conditional upon the group's return to obedience and duty within a prescribed period. See also pardon.


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But Zapatero's was simpler and more open to abuse, and bigger than all previous amnesties combined.
Numbers USA (a liberal organization with which we would disagree on many environmental and social policies) has counted six amnesties that have been enacted since the 1986 IRCA.
These limited amnesties permitted squatters to purchase the land they occupied at a low price.
 
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