[9] Special remissions are normally granted on compassionate grounds (although there are now statutory powers available), after an offender provides information to help bring other offenders to justice after they have been convicted (however this is now partly covered by section 74 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005), to recognize remarkably good conduct in custody, such as the prevention of escape, injury, or death, or to remedy an incorrectly calculated release date.
[9] George wished to commute death sentence for a defendant in Clare who had burned his own house; the king backed down after Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel threatened to resign.
[9] Capital sentences passed at the Old Bailey were once reviewed at Privy Council meetings, but this practice ended so that cases of "an unnamable character" would not be discussed in Queen Victoria's presence.
[14] Recipients included Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly, who was granted an RPM after he was captured in the Netherlands in 1986, to which he had fled after escaping in 1983 from Maze Prison, where he was serving a sentence for his participation in the IRA's 1973 Old Bailey bombing.
[15] In 1884 Queen Victoria exercised the royal prerogative to commute the death sentences of Thomas Dudley and Edwin Stephens to imprisonment for six months due to the circumstances of their crime.
[16] In 2001 two inmates at HMP Prescoed, South Wales, were released 28 days early, under the prerogative of mercy, as a reward for saving the life of the manager of the prison farm when he was attacked and gored by a captive wild boar.
Gallant, who was serving life imprisonment for murder, was granted this reduction in sentence "in recognition of his exceptionally brave actions at Fishmongers' Hall, which helped save people's lives despite the tremendous risk to his own" while confronting terrorist Usman Khan during the 2019 London Bridge attack.
[18] In Australia, the Governor-General acts on the advice of the Attorney-General or Minister for Justice, and may only exercise the prerogative of mercy in relation to a federal offender convicted of a Commonwealth offence.
[19] In Canada the royal prerogative of mercy is established in Letters Patent of the Governor General, who consistent with constitutional convention may grant pardons on the advice of a cabinet minister.
The Governor-General will act on the advice of the Minister of Justice, and has the power to grant a pardon, refer a case back to the courts for reconsideration, and to reduce a person's sentence.
[2] In 2013, Scott Watson was refused a pardon by Sir Jerry Mateparae under the prerogative of mercy, following advice from the then-Minister of Justice Judith Collins.