The pardon implies the total or partial forgiveness of a sentence that someone has been serving after being judged, or failing that, the commutation of it, which consists of a modification in the punishment, of course for a less serious sentence than the one that it was had, that is to say: it went from a death sentence to a life sentence after the pardon received.
On the other hand, it is common for the word pardon to be used to designate that pardon or commutation of sentence granted by a political authority such as a president of the nation to a prisoner for political reasons.
From the foregoing it follows that the pardon represents a legal way to extinguish a conviction on the criminal level. However, it will differ from the amnesty in that the pardon does not imply in any way the forgiveness of the offense as if it occurs with the amnesty, in the pardon, as we have already said, the fulfillment of the punishment will be forgiven or it will be reduced in years but the individual he is still guilty of that crime perpetrated.
Meanwhile, there are two types of pardons, the partial pardon, which implies the suppression of all sanctions that have been applied to the person; and for its part, the partial pardon only exempts from some punishments the fulfillment of the sentence.
It should be noted on the subject that there have always been controversies around the world about the decisions that some governments make to pardon political prisoners. Especially these arise because pardons are usually the consequence of a political decision that is made after a pact with some sector or group of society that precisely demands a pardon from their side in exchange for some concession.
Very serious crimes, such as those caused by state terrorism perpetrated in the military dictatorship of 1976 in Argentina, received pardons under the democratic government of Carlos Menem. Such an act that freed soldiers accused of human rights violations caused a strong popular rejection, but despite this the government validated them.
Also the word pardon is used to denote the exemption that someone receives regarding an obligation to fulfill.
