Czech President Petr Pavel has granted his first presidential pardons since he became head of state in March 2023, to two mothers of underage children, a foreign national living in the country, and a Czech man convicted of drug smuggling abroad, the Presidential Office announced yesterday.
Under the previous president Milos Zeman, applications for pardons were first assessed by the Justice Ministry, which handed to the Presidential Office only those that met the conditions set by Zeman. As of January, the Presidential Office took over the whole process from the ministry, and has received more than 700 pardon applications so far this year.
In the case of a 29-year-old woman who had been taking care of three underage children, Pavel pardoned the rest of her sentence, nearly 300 days in prison, which she received for minor property crime that had caused damage of around CZK 13,000.
“The President has taken into account in particular the need to provide care for children aged three to seven,” Pavel’s office said in a press release. The children’s father is unable to go to work because he is taking care of the children, which has worsened the family’s financial situation.
The other woman pardoned is a 26-year-old who was taking care of her seven children aged from two to nine before her imprisonment. She has been freed from the remaining part of her prison sentence of over four years, imposed on her for stealing and running an illegal business in the early 2010s. The children’s father took over their care, but there is a risk that the children will be taken away and placed in foster or institutional care as the care is demanding.
Both pardon decisions were supported by the relevant child welfare authorities.
A 36-year-old foreign national has also been granted a pardon. The man, who has been living and working in the Czech Republic for a long time, was punished for drink driving, hitting two parked cars and causing damage of CZK 112,000. He fully covered the damage as well as the fine of CZK 60,000, and has not violated a two-year driving ban, more than half of which has already passed.
However, the man was at risk of losing his long-term Czech residence permit due to his crime, which would have resulted in a much harsher penalty. He has been living in the Czech Republic for seven years; he and his wife own a flat and he has developed a local family, work and social background. He pays taxes, has never been registered at the employment office or received social or other benefits, and has not committed any other crime or offence to date.
The last pardon was granted to a 76-year-old Czech man who had been sentenced to 27 years in prison for drug smuggling in Hong Kong in 2018. Given the age of the man, this was in practice a life sentence.
In making his decision, the President took into account the fact that the penalty for the same offence ranges from eight to twelve years in the Czech Republic. The applicant had already served six years of his sentence abroad, and was sent to his homeland about two years ago, where he was serving the rest of his term.
Thanks to the pardon, the sentence will be reduced from 27 to eight years, in line with the lower limit of the Czech penal code. The man will be released from prison in November.
Zeman granted 26 pardons during his ten years in office (2013-2023), 18 of which were based on recommendations from the ministry and another eight on his own initiative. The ministry made 58 pardon recommendations to him, out of 7,646 applications received. Under President Zeman, the ministry could only submit applications for convicts suffering from a serious or terminal illness that was immediately life-threatening.
During his election campaign, Pavel announced that he would grant pardons only in exceptional cases.
Zeman’s post-communist predecessors, Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, granted almost 1,700 pardons in the years 1993-2013, including reducing a punishment or halting criminal proceedings. Havel granted 860 individual pardons as Czech president from 1993-2002. Klaus granted 412 individual pardons during his two five-year terms (2003-13).
The last communist president Gustav Husak granted as many as 2,018 pardons in 1988 alone, the last year before the regime collapsed.
