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To Pardon Or Not To Pardon Part 2: Lee Meng, Mokhtar Hashim

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Lee Meng Lee Meng, a famous communist courier during the Malayan Emergency, was captured by the Special Branch in the early 1950s. She was sentenced to death for possession of a hand grenade and for ordering several murders. Her case attracted worldwide attention, including an offer by the then-communist government of Hungary to swap her freedom with a British spy detained in Budapest. Lee Meng in court Her appeal to the Privy Council was also rejected. Point to note: until 1978, final appeals for criminal cases must have been referred to the Privy Council, now replaced by the Malaysian Supreme Court. Since her conviction was in a Perak court, her final appeal was for pardon from the Perak Sultan. And interestingly, her appeal for pardon was supported by more than 50 members of the Malayan Parliament. Even Winston Churchill, the then British Prime Minister, strongly argued against her pardon, but the Sultan of Perak agreed to pardon her, and she was banished to China after...
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To Pardon Or Not To Pardon Part 1

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In simple English PARDON means to forgive. Pardon, in law, means release from guilt or remission of punishment. In criminal law, the power of pardon is generally exercised by the chief executive officer or ruler of the state. Wikipedia says a pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction. Most countries have a pardon sytem, but the implementation of it differs from country to country. In The United States, the president has absolute power to pardon, but it is limited to federal crimes except for impeachment. And they don't even have a pardon board like us. State crimes come under the authority of state governors. One of the most controversial pardons by any sitting America presidents was the one issued by Gerald Ford in 1974, when he issued a proclamation pardoning Richar...
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