Image from Cute Overload. It's a baby 'roo. Cute Overload is campaigning against puppy mills. Please adopt a shelter cat/dog instead of buying from pet stores or breeders. Can someone explain to me why US presidents have
the right to pardon anyone they want for any crime, without limit? This 'noble' right has its origin in European monarchies, and it was granted to democratically elected leaders for the purposes of restoring peace to their nation after a period of civil unrest -- basically to make peace with the opposition and move forward.
But that is not how it's used. Clinton's relatives actually accepted fees to get their 'clients' on his pardon list. And while Bush said he would not allow any such thing under his administration, he has already pardoned Scooter Libby. There is a huge cohort of political cronies and corporate criminals, including disgraced ex-Canadian tycoon Conrad Black, looking for "get out of jail free" cards when Bush leaves office.
The fact that such pardons are still permitted shows how far we have to go to achieve anything resembling real democracy and fair, consistent justice in our countries. It is no wonder that struggling nations raise their eyebrows at the suggestion that affluent nations are a model they should follow. Justice depends on who you know and how wealthy you are. Our electoral systems are corrupted by bribery disguised as campaign contributions and lobbying. Gerrymandering is still tolerated. Governments are not required to uphold the laws of the land, as the disgraceful state of the US EPA demonstrates. Corporate criminals settle out of court and escape jail terms and punitive fines that ordinary citizens would face. Leaders lie about wars, torture people in secret and not-so-secret prisons, and covertly invade other countries, finance and arm coups, and assassinate leaders they don't like. Some even issue Napoleonic unilateral "statements" declaring themselves to be exempt from the laws of the land.
So perhaps it's not surprising that we all yawn when an outgoing leader pardons dozens or hundreds of criminals, and people who have not yet even been charged or convicted of crimes, on a personal whim or because he "owes it" to those with money and power.
But if we had any pretense at all to being just, fair and democratic nations, we would not tolerate it. Constitutionally liberal states (as opposed to totalitarian ones) separate legislative (law-making), executive (law-upholding) and judicial (law-interpreting) functions. It's a system of checks and balances, but in many nations it's hopelessly broken, with judicial nominees making the law and overturning election results, and executive branch leaders making laws and exempting themselves and their administrations from being subject to it, or upholding it, as they see fit. Complacent and cowardly legislatures tolerate this because it gets them off the hook from having to make laws that are controversial, that balance the needs and rights of different groups. They can simply pass politically popular laws they know the executive branch will veto or the judiciary will rule unconstitutional, so those other branches can be blamed for the law's failure.
The right of executive branch leaders to pardon criminals (and pre-emptively pardon the not-yet-prosecuted) is an abhorrent and antiquated right, which corrodes the spirit of constitutional democracy. It's time that leaders, and their cronies, learned that no one is above the law.
PS: I'm still limping along without a robust way to post to my blog from my new Mac, and an inability to upload new graphics (right now I have to steal images from other sites, or put them up on flickr or picasaweb and link from there). This post was made using the blog's WYSIWYG screen on Firefox. Apologies for the ongoing formatting problems and dearth of posts. Hope to get this resolved soon.
译文:
缘何赦免？
图片来自网站小可爱超载。这是只小袋鼠。“小可爱超载”正与“幼犬作坊”竞争。请领养流浪在外的猫猫狗狗，不要从宠物店或宠物饲者处购买。
有谁能告诉我，为何美国总统可以赦免犯任何一种罪的任何罪犯，并且这种赦免权毫无限制？这项“高尚”权发源于欧洲君主国，并被引入授予民主选举产生的总统手中，为的是在国内一段时期的动乱之后恢复回家的和平——主要是与反对党和解，双方携手并进。
但现如今对赦免权的使用已违背了它设立的初衷。事实上，克林顿的亲戚为了把他们的“委托人”写入克林顿的赦免名单中，同意交纳“报名费”。布什声称他绝不允许像这样的事在他的执政生涯中发生，可他不也赦免了斯科特·李比？在布什即将离任之际，还有一大帮他的政治密友和企业罪犯，包括厚颜无耻的前加拿大企业巨头康拉德·布莱克，正寻找使自己“脱离监狱的牢笼拥抱自由”的方法。
此项赦免权仍被允许使用的事实，说明我们国家通往真正民主与公平，始终如一的司法公正的道路还很漫长。毫无疑问，正在逆境中奋斗的国家把富有国家作为标准，认为它们是其追逐的模范。但看起来司法公正似乎取决于你是谁，你有多少钱。我们的选举制度已被贿赂所腐化，而这种贿赂行为披着竞选捐款和竞选游说的外衣。不公正操作及欺骗仍随处可见。正如丢尽脸的美国环保署所说明的那样，政府并不被要求必需维护国家法律。企业罪犯被庭外和解，逃脱了普通民众必须面临的监狱刑和惩罚刑。领导人们编造战争的谎言，暗地里或在并不秘密的监狱里拷打折磨人，毫不知足地侵略别的国家，投资并垄断军火买卖，暗杀他们不喜欢的领导人。有一些甚至发表拿破仑的单边“声明”，表明自己对国家法律是免责的。
因此对这类事件我们会感到无奈和麻木也就不足为奇了——一个即将离任的领导人赦免十多个或上百个刑事罪犯，甚至有些人还没来得及被起诉或宣判有罪，而这些只是出于他个人的一时兴致或者这是他“欠”那些有权有势之人的。
但如果我们有一丁点儿伸张正义，追求公平和实现国家民主的想法的话，我们将不能容忍上述行径。宪法保证的自由国家（与极权主义国家相对立）是三权分立的：立法权（制定法律），行政权（维护法律）和司法权（解释法律）。这有利于权利制约与平衡，但在许多国家这种制约与平衡彻底被打破，它们的司法官员制定法律并推翻选举结果，行政领导人制定法律给予自己豁免权，且法律的执行受其支配或仅在于维护他们认为适宜的法律。自鸣得意且唯唯诺诺的立法部门默许了这种模式，因为这样可以使他们摆脱不得不制定有争议之法律的困境，利于平衡不同组织的需求与权利。他们会草草通过政治上受欢迎的法律，他们知道行政部门会否决或司法部门会判定违宪，这样以来，那两个部门会被指责为法律执行失利与法律解释失败。
行政部门领导人赦免罪犯（以及事先赦免未被起诉的罪犯）的权利是一项迂腐的与民主国家背道而驰的权利，它腐蚀了宪法中有关民主的精髓。是时候让领导人和他们的同僚明白“没有人能凌驾于法律之上”了。
PS: 我仍艰难地发表了这篇日志，因为我还没找寻到一个有用的途径把我新Mag上的文章张贴到博客上，我也不太会上传新图片（现在只能用从其它网站上偷来的图片，或把图片存入flichr或picasaweb然后链接到博客上）。本文的发表使用了Firefox的WYSIWYG屏幕程序制作而成。我为自己常犯的格式错误和图片缺乏问题向读者致歉。希望我能很快解决这个问题。