[RedHot25]

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/pol...box=1666737014

What Smith is describing doesn’t quite align with the idea of a legal pardon, said Lorian Hardcastle, an associate professor at the U of C’s law and medicine faculties. That’s because Smith’s comments specify outstanding fines, while pardons would apply to those who have already been convicted.

Pardons are typically granted at the federal government level, Hardcastle said, including the 2019 launch of a pardoning application for those with criminal records for simple marijuana possession.

COVID-related fines issued under provincial legislation don’t fall under that process. Smith has the jurisdiction to create a pardoning process for Alberta, but the government would have to introduce legislation and a legal framework to do so.

“I’m not sure how many people would apply for that, though, because a record that you’ve been fined under provincial legislation doesn’t follow you in the way that a Criminal Code offence follows you,” Hardcastle said.

The issue of amnesty for cancellation of fines for pending charges doesn’t come with the same legal barriers, Hardcastle said. But it does raise concerns about blurring lines between Alberta’s government and its justice system, institutions kept at arm’s-length by design.

“Her language suggests that perhaps her intention is to actually interfere with those that are working their way through the system,” she said.

“We, for good reason, generally allow prosecutorial discretion to lay charges and prosecute individuals under validly enacted laws, and we generally frown upon, for good reason, politicians interfering with the process by politicizing it, which is what she seems to be doing.”