Justice Pritchard’s Jim Carlton Lecture – Prerogative Pardons and the Rule of Law

In light of President Trump’s pardons of friends, associates and political allies, and President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, it has been observed that in a Presidential system there can occasionally, or indeed frequently, be an overreach of executive authority and a lack of accountability to the people. The place of the executive power of pardon in a system of responsible government, however, is quite different from the place of the power of pardon in a Presidential system in which the executive branch is independent of the legislative branch. The prerogative or executive pardon is consistent with the rule of law in a system of responsible government in which the government is accountable to Parliament and must retain the support of the majority of elected members of the popular house, and retains an important role at the “rough edges” of the system for the administration of criminal justice in Australia in recognising the role of mercy. The prerogative in Australia, though seldom used, has been exercised to pardon those whose convictions are attended by a particular concern, including Kathleen Folbigg, Lindy Chamberlain and Colin Campbell Ross, and to alleviate unjust sentences, such as in the case of the mandatory sentencing of Zac Grieve.

Listen to the lecture here or here on Youtube.