What is AMNESTY? Definition of AMNESTY in Black's Law Dictionary
A sovereign act of oblivion for past acts, granted by a government to all persons (or to certain persons) who have been guilty of crime or delict, generally political offenses,—treason, sedition, rebellion,—and often conditioned upon their return to obedience and duty within a prescribed time.
A general pardon or proclamation of such pardon from subjects' offenses against the government; while usually exerted in behalf of certain classes of persons, subject to trial, but not convicted, it is not confined to such cases. Commonwealth v. Hamburg Magistrate, 104 Pa.Super. 221, 158 A. 629, 631.
A declaration of the person or persons who have newly acquired or recovered the sovereign power in a state, by which they pardon all persons who composed, supported, or obeyed the government which has been overthrowti.
The word "amnesty" properly belongs to international law, and is applied *to treaties of peace following a state of war, and signifies there the burial in oblivion of the particular cause of strife, so that that shall not be again a cause for war between the parties; and this signification of "amnesty" is fully and poetically expressed in the Indian custom of burying the hatchet. And so amnesty is applied to rebellions which by their magnitude are brought within the rules of international law. It means only "oblivion," and never is a grant. Knote v. U. S., 10 Ct.C1. 407.
Amnesty is the abolition and forgetfulness of the offense; pardon is forgiveness. Knote v. U. S., 95 U.S. 149, 152, 24 L.Ed. 442. The first is usually addressed to crimes against the sovereignty of the state, to political offenses; the second condones infractions of the peace of the state. Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79, 35 S.Ct. 267, 271, 59 L.Ed. 476.
Express amnesty is one granted in direct terms.
Implied amnesty is one which results when a treaty of peace is made between contending parries. Vattel, 1, 4, c. 2, § 20.
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