October 6, 2026
The problem of the amnesty law in Lebanon: confusion between legal “repetition” and security suspicions awaiting the decision of the Constitutional Council
The amnesty law in Lebanon leaves fundamental questions unresolved about the concept of “repetition,” which deprives those included from benefiting from its provisions. While the Penal Code defines repetition as being linked to the issuance of a previous final ruling and the commission of a subsequent crime within specific conditions and deadlines, the Amnesty Law addresses “multiple prosecutions” and their repetition, stipulating varying numbers in theft and drug cases, without providing clear mechanisms for calculating files or dealing with unresolved cases.
This legal controversy comes at a time when the appeal submitted by the “Free Patriotic Movement” before the Constitutional Council is still under consideration, awaiting the final decision. The Council had taken a decision to temporarily suspend the effect of the law until the constitutional appeal was decided, which means that the problem of interpreting the provisions and implementation mechanisms precedes deciding the law’s fate in the first place.
In the details of the approved criteria, the law excludes in theft cases those who have been prosecuted or sentenced more than twice in felonies, and more than three times in misdemeanors. As for drug felonies, he is exempted from repeating the felonies for the second time, regardless of whether a court ruling was issued against him or not.
The contrast becomes clear when comparing concepts. Legal repetition is not achieved simply by repeatedly mentioning a name or the presence of suspicions, but rather requires a conviction by a final ruling. On the other hand, the Amnesty Law uses broad terms such as “repeated prosecutions,” and in drug cases it includes cases in which no judicial ruling has been issued. To bring the picture closer, the example of a taxi driver whose name was mentioned in a report is given because a passenger involved in a theft boarded his car without evidence of the driver’s knowledge, or the owner of a car in which drugs were seized that were used by others. Is the appearance of the name in multiple reports considered repeated, according to which the person will be excluded from pardon before his guilt is proven? These examples assume the need for a critical distinction between mentioning a name in a security report, prosecution, and actual conviction that mere security reports do not mean.
In the executive context, a high-ranking judicial source warns of additional complications resulting from the large number of files and the multiplicity of parties, pointing out that the audit is done manually in most cases, which makes verifying the names and fate of each file a vital matter in order to avoid treating unresolved suspicions as established crimes.
As part of the field preparations, the Cassation Public Prosecutor, Judge Ahmed Rami Al-Hajj, conducted an inspection visit to the joint central operations room for managing general amnesty files at the Gendarmerie Command in Jisr Al-Basha. To review the progress of the ongoing preparations to collect the files of convicts and detainees, including their rulings, criminal records, and security information, in preparation for sorting the cases.
Regarding administrative procedures, the website had previously reported that the Supreme Judicial Council was considering issuing a regulatory circular to unify the handling of files. However, the judicial source clarifies that any circular remains within the framework of organizing work steps, without replacing the legal text or imposing on the judge an approach in a specific case, as the judge alone remains the authority to apply and interpret the text, while amending the law or approving new general rules remains within the jurisdiction of the legislative authority in the House of Representatives.
The source concludes by emphasizing that the core of the crisis lies in the text’s failure to define an accurate concept of prosecution, and the mechanism for dealing with files in which no ruling was issued or those that ended in dismissal or acquittal, stressing that the fact that these questions remain unanswered increases the possibility of judicial application varying from one file to another.
