Presidential Christmas pardon excludes those sentenced for the January 8 riots
Benefit observes legal criteria and does not contemplate crimes against democracy
This Tuesday (23rd), the President of the Republic published a decree on the Federal Official Gazette granting a Presidential Christmas pardon and commutation of sentence for people deprived of liberty. The measure is a prerogative of the head of the Executive branch, set out and limited by the Federal Constitution. Exclusions from those eligible include people convicted of crimes such as terrorism, torture, hideous crimes, and drug trafficking.
The 2025 decree restates objective criteria for the sentence pardon and contemplates, among other groups, people who have served part of their sentence for crimes without violence or severe threat, people with at risk pregnancies, mothers with children under their care, people with disabilities or severe illnesses, in addition to criteria related to age and time served.
At the same time, the text maintains a series of explicit exclusions that restrict the scope of this benefit. This includes the prohibition of offering the Presidential pardon to people convicted of crimes against the Democratic Rule of Law, which, in practice, excludes those convicted for the antidemocratic acts of January 8th, 2023. This also excludes convictions for hideous or similar crimes, terrorism, racism, violence against women, drug trafficking, criminal organization, among others set out in the decree.
Read more
As in previous years, for the pardon to be rendered effective, the Justice system and penitentiary administrations must act expeditiously and judiciously, overcoming practices that have previously mitigated its impact, such as subjective assessments and delaying tactics.
