““RED TV”
The head of the “Justice Without Borders” association, the appellate lawyer, Wissam Hassan Khalil, confirmed that a general amnesty constitutes an exceptional case that the state resorts to in specific circumstances, including overcrowding in prisons and the slowness of trials. He stressed at the same time that approving an amnesty does not mean granting the accused or convict a “deed of innocence,” and does not lead to the abolition of the personal rights of those affected and the families of the victims.
During an interview on the “3:15 Meeting” program on RED TV, Khalil explained that the law excludes personal rights from the effects of amnesty, considering that the state does not essentially have the authority to revoke this right, especially in cases related to the families of army martyrs, stressing that “army martyrs are a red line for all political parties, and no one compromises on their rights.”
He pointed out that the general amnesty proposed at the current stage cannot be compared to the amnesty issued in 1991, explaining that the amnesty at that stage was of a political nature, and came in the context of overturning the consequences of a previous stage, while the circumstances and reasons surrounding the current proposal differ.
Khalil touched on the crisis of slow trials, considering that it is due to many reasons, including political factors, but he stressed that it is unacceptable for any detainee to remain behind bars for long years without a trial, based on the legal rule that stipulates that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.
On the other hand, he acknowledged that the amnesty law may include people who are not innocent, saying that there are of course those who have committed crimes and will benefit from this law, but that does not mean that the crime itself is erased or that responsibility for it is removed.
He explained that some detainees who have spent more than 12 years in detention could be released while the judicial prosecution against them continues, while in other cases a pardon that does not entail personal rights could lead to the release of its beneficiaries.
Khalil pointed out that the state, in its approach to the general amnesty file, is primarily based on addressing the prison overcrowding crisis, rather than focusing on the position of the victims’ families, considering that its primary goal is to reduce the worsening pressure inside the prisons.
He added that there are “real injustices” inside prisons that must be addressed, noting that the state’s inability over the past years to implement the required reforms has exacerbated the overcrowding crisis, which prompted the proposal of a general amnesty as one of the solutions proposed to address the existing reality.
Regarding the security aspect, Khalil saw that the state is doing what it can do on the security level, but Lebanon lives in a state of security chaos that is exacerbated by the successive crises that the country is going through.
Regarding the relationship between pardon and the course of justice, he stressed that the judiciary remains the body that decides cases and determines responsibilities, explaining that pardon does not waive the crime for the perpetrator to the extent that it leads to waiving the state’s right towards him in accordance with the conditions set by the law, while personal rights remain in place and may not be infringed.
He considered that the concept of justice is achieved when the judiciary decides on the crime and proves the perpetrator’s responsibility for it, which means that pardon, even if applied, does not cancel the reality of the crime and does not turn the perpetrator innocent from a realistic or moral standpoint.
In this context, Khalil believed that the state has brought citizens to a stage where it has become difficult to absolutely object to the amnesty law, considering that the representatives who legislate this type of law have reached the parliament through the votes of citizens, and therefore political and legislative responsibility are inseparable from voters’ choices.
He concluded by stressing that any approach to a general amnesty must balance addressing the prison crisis and respecting the rights of victims, while preserving the role of the judiciary in establishing crimes and responsibilities, and not turning amnesty into a means of canceling personal rights or affecting the rights of the families of the victims, first and foremost the families of the army martyrs.
