Over the recent past, there have been numerous debates regarding the question of whether a ruling president can pardon himself of herself from a crime. Individuals have tried to make their own judgments from legal perspectives based on historical contexts, ethics, doctrines, and ethos. All these have pointed to the fact that such a pardon is not constitutionally permissible because it would not be aligned to any of the Acts under the American constitution.
One of the main theoretical perspective that best explains this issue is psychological egoism because it does not have any regard for ethics. The theory describes the nature of humans as one that is self-motivated and self-centered. The implication here is that individuals will always make decisions to favor their selves without regard for others.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The law says that the president is granted power by the constitution to pardon federal crimes. It, however, does not state that he/she has the power to pardon himself and as such, there is no outright permission to do so. If presidents are given such a power to make judgments on their own cases, then they will be going against the rule of the societal laws. Theoretically, they would be able to commit horrible crimes such as treason and terrorism without facing the criminal justice system. Pardoning one self would therefore be considered an act that is aligned to psychological egoism.
In the event that the president declares himself temporarily incapable of executing his duties to the state, the vice president would step in as the acting president. It is only then that the latter would be able to pardon the president when they are in power. The pardoned president can then decide to either resume duty or resign from office. From a legal perspective, this seems to be the only way a president can be pardoned of his crimes. Any other move to use power in such a manner would be deemed as a corrupt move that goes against the principles that were set by the founding fathers.
It is imperative to note that there is no section in the constitution that directly addresses the issue of presidential self- pardons. The basic design of the laws is, however, based on logical reasoning that is aligned to the design of the structure of the constitution. If one makes their judgment from this perspective, then it would mean that a president does not have the capacity to benefit himself/herself against authorized criminal prosecutions.
