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08.24.26

Statement on the General Amnesty Law: Why it must be rejected or else annulled

Legal Agenda,
The Policy Initiative

On 13 August 2026, Parliament passed a general amnesty bill that grants an unconditional, near-universal amnesty for a vast number of crimes, foremost among them crimes of corruption in the public and private sectors that resulted in the destruction and impoverishment of society. In reality, this bill was built on a set of grave constitutional violations that run counter to national interest. Moreover, a review of the final version sent to the President’s Office for promulgation reveals that it blatantly falsifies the public will. Below, we detail the most serious of these violations in the hope that the President’s Office will reject the law or – if that does not happen – that the Constitutional Council will annul it.

Amnesty as the Rule and Accountability as the Exception

The first issue is the inversion of the constitutional principle of equality before the law, which presupposes that accountability is the rule and amnesty is an exception granted only when necessary. This inversion is evident in Article 1 of the text adopted, which states that all crimes, including felonies, are covered by the amnesty unless explicitly excluded. This makes it possible to silently pardon various crimes while reserving the ability to ignore the amnesty on the pretext that a given crime was accidentally omitted from the exceptions. Making matters worse, many of the exceptions are worded in an ambiguous manner (as explained below) that any defendant can exploit to claim that they are covered by the amnesty and thereby bog down their case in procedural defenses for many years before the competent court even has a chance to investigate the facts of their alleged crimes. Moreover, one of the gravest consequences of making amnesty the rule is that the amnesty covers various war crimes and crimes against humanity being perpetrated in the south (the destruction of homes and villages), which are not explicitly excluded.

Deception and Misdirection

The development of this text was characterized by various forms of deception and misdirection. While its rationale section implies that it aims only to address prison overcrowding and prolonged pretrial detention, with a focus on convicted and detained Islamists, the amnesty actually covers almost every type of crime, including crimes that are still unprosecuted and for which nobody is detained. The same misdirection can be found in the wording of the exceptions to the amnesty, which produces effects contrary to what is implied. This is especially evident in the exceptions for banking crimes, illicit enrichment crimes, and even environmental crimes, as we explain below.

Falsification of the Public Will

A comparison of the version of the bill distributed to Parliament’s General Assembly with the final version sent for promulgation reveals substantial amendments to the list of exceptions – amendments that reverse the direction of the law in several respects. The two most revealing cases concern crimes of corruption in the public sector and illicit enrichment crimes. Firstly, while the version distributed to MPs excluded public sector corruption crimes from the amnesty, this exception disappeared from the final version such that the amnesty encompasses, in principle, all these crimes. Secondly, while the version distributed to MPs included an exception for all cases of illicit enrichment, this exception was narrowed to cases of embezzlement in a manner that effectively precludes inquiry into where certain officials obtained their wealth. These changes were made behind the scenes in a blatant act of falsifying the public will.

Self-Amnesty for 35 Years of Procurements and Mismanagement of Public Funds

Just as the 1991 Amnesty Law resulted in the ruling authorities granting themselves amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1975-1990 war, the 2026 law effectively whitewashes 35 years of corruption that plundered and impoverished society – this time unconditionally. This was done by granting amnesty for all corruption crimes except for embezzlement and direct encroachment on public funds – i.e. “primitive corruption” that virtually no official with any stature, savvy, or common sense would commit. The effect is that the amnesty covers most cases of corruption, such as those involving bribery, kickbacks, extortion, or influence peddling, particularly in the context of awarding and supervising contracts or mismanaging public funds (such as the cases of former ministers George Bouchikian and Amin Salam). This amnesty encompasses not only public officials but also all parties that benefited from these procurement contracts and the squandering of public funds (such as all those involved in electricity contracts, the delivery of tainted fuel, or the poor construction of sewerage networks and plants).

Amnesty for Unexplainable Increases in Wealth

Contrary to the impression given by the text, the wording of the exception for illicit enrichment crimes actually serves more to extend the amnesty to them than to exclude them. Firstly, excluding only the illicit enrichment crimes stipulated in Law no. 189 of 2020 means granting amnesty for any illicit enrichment that occurred before that law was enacted, including illicit enrichment that preceded Lebanon’s financial collapse. Secondly, the exception limits prosecution to illicit enrichment through theft or embezzlement of public funds, thereby granting amnesty for most cases of illicit enrichment, which usually stems from other acts of corruption such as those mentioned earlier. Consequently, the general amnesty becomes a tool for laundering money and wealth and silencing anyone who asks, “Where did this official obtain this wealth?”.

Amnesty for Banking Crimes

Here too, the text gives the impression that banking crimes are excluded from the amnesty. However, a close examination of this exception reveals that it too serves more to extend the amnesty to these crimes and limit any prosecution of them than to exclude them. Firstly, the exception is limited to crimes that fall under the Money and Credit Law or are stipulated in the laws and regulations governing banks. Hence, all crimes committed by banks that are not covered by this exception receive amnesty, including crimes stipulated in general laws such as the Penal Code. The egregiousness of this approach is apparent when we consider that most money and credit crimes are punishable by no more than a fine and a short prison sentence – penalties that are not proportionate to the collusion that occurred in the context of financial engineering, which falls under general laws not mentioned in the exception. Secondly, limiting the exception to money and credit crimes also makes accountability contingent on the will of the central bank, which – under Article 206 of the Money and Credit Law – is the only authority with the power to request that such crimes be prosecuted. This approach is reinforced by the fact that the text bars money laundering charges in connection with any banking crimes or crimes related to depositors.

Amnesty for Crimes of Stockpiling or Smuggling Subsidized Goods

During the first two years of the financial crisis, a handful of traders benefited from the “subsidized dollar” policy for importing essential goods for distribution on the market. However, in practice, some of these traders smuggled the subsidized goods out of Lebanon or stockpiled them in order to sell them at market prices after the subsidy ended, thereby amassing enormous wealth. These crimes – which sapped the nation’s wealth and forced Lebanese into humiliating queues – likewise find mercy in the general amnesty, as they are not explicitly excluded and the exception for illicit enrichment is limited to embezzlement cases.

An Exception for Money Laundering Undermined by Amnesty for Crimes That Generate Illicit Funds

The text excludes crimes stipulated in the Anti-Money Laundering Law from the amnesty (while explicitly precluding money laundering charges in connection with certain crimes, such as bribery and banking crimes). However, this exception remains limited by the difficulty of proving money laundering when the amnesty encompasses most crimes that might generate illicit funds requiring laundering (such as corruption crimes, illicit enrichment crimes, and drug crimes).

Amnesty for Environmental Crimes and the Destruction of Natural Resources

The text excludes “environmental crimes stipulated in Environmental Protection Law no. 444 of 2002”, as well as crimes stipulated in “related texts”, from the amnesty. However, a close examination of this exception reveals that it once again serves more to extend the amnesty to environmental crimes than to exclude them. Limiting the exception to crimes stipulated in the Environmental Protection Law means, in practice, granting amnesty for all the more serious crimes not mentioned in this law. The gravest environmental crimes potentially covered by the amnesty include those stipulated in Quarries and Crushers Regulation Decree no. 8803 of 2002 (i.e. crimes that have destroyed approximately 15 square kilometers of the Lebanese landscape); the laws protecting forests, woodlands, and nature reserves; the laws protecting air and water; and other laws that aim to protect natural heritage in the era of ecocide in the south.

Generalized Amnesty for Drug Mafias

The text excludes drug crimes established to have been committed more than twice. However, this recidivism condition is an extremely difficult threshold only met in very rare cases. Recidivism requires that the act for which the person is on trial was committed within seven years of the completion of a sentence imposed by a final ruling or the expiry of its prescription period. This condition is not met in the case of most people who were sentenced in absentia (as usually occurs in the case of major drug traffickers and leaders of gangs involved in such trafficking) as these rulings are not considered final. Hence, this condition appears to be just another ruse.

Amnesty for Persons Themselves (Families of Collaborators) Irrespective of Their Crimes

The text excludes “crimes of treason and espionage and crimes related to illicit connections with the enemy, with the exception of persons encompassed by Paragraph 2 of Article 1 of Law no. 194, who automatically benefit from the present law”. The people in question are the families of collaborators who fled from Lebanon following the liberation of the south in 2000. The issue here is that the law grants these persons full amnesty for any of these crimes without requiring them to have never joined the Israeli army or committed war crimes in Lebanon or to have renounced Israeli citizenship (if they acquired it). This amnesty also conflicts with the principle of equality before the law because it applies to persons themselves rather than to specific crimes.

Indiscriminate Reduced Amnesty

The significance of this law lies not only in what the amnesty encompasses and excludes but also in its granting of a sentence reduction for the crimes excluded, including extremely grave crimes such as murder and terrorism. This is essentially a reduced form of amnesty. In conjunction with the recent law abolishing capital punishment, the text effectively reduces both the death penalty and life imprisonment to 17 years of imprisonment (i.e. 12 years and nine months actually served), while reducing all other sentences by one third. Hence, here too, the legislators fell into the trap of generalization by granting “sentence reduction” to all convicts, lacking the courage to examine which cases warranted legislative intervention to reduce the sentences handed down in them. As a result of this generalization, many people convicted of heinous crimes will be set free in a manner that reinforces the spectacle of widespread impunity.

Stripping the State of Weapons for Recovering Its Stolen Funds

Because the amnesty covers crimes that drained billions of dollars, we fear that the state, along with its Public Prosecution, will lose one of its most important weapons for recovering its stolen funds: criminal penalties. Consequently, a small number of individuals will be able to enjoy the wealth that they plundered from society as a whole.

Hence, given the disastrous nature of this law and the deception and falsification surrounding it, we call upon:

- The president to exercise his power to reject the law. The rejection decree should emphasize that accountability must be the rule, the rights of the state and society must not be infringed upon, and the law must be limited to addressing detainee conditions and prison overcrowding.

- The parliamentary blocs opposed to this law to file a constitutional challenge against it. This move should be accompanied by a commitment from academics and rights organizations to assess the law’s constitutionality and supply the Constitutional Council with their opinions.

Lebanon paid a heavy price as a result of the general amnesty enacted in 1991. It is our duty to society to resist and push back against this new amnesty law in order to strengthen its defenses against plunderers and murderers and, ultimately, obtain justice.

 


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