To gauge the disturbing nature of US President George W. Bush's intervention to spare a convicted former vice-presidential aide from prison, just imagine if it happened in Hong Kong. Let's say a senior official serving a key minister was, like Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, sentenced to 30 months' jail having been found guilty by a jury of perjury and obstructing justice.
The chief executive intervenes so the offender does not have to serve jail time but stops short of a full pardon, describing the original sentence as 'excessive' and leaving a hefty fine in place.
Howls of outrage would rightly rise across the city, questioning Hong Kong's proud judicial independence and the role of government under 'one country, two systems'; mass protests would be a distinct possibility.
Mr Bush also is facing stiff criticism, albeit not on the predicted Hong Kong scale. He deserves to face considerable heat, given a move that mocks the higher motives of the US justice system. Article II of the US constitution gives a US president essentially unrestricted powers of pardon, a right exercised by all of Mr Bush's modern peers.
Reflecting the compassionate nature of the power, many unjustly convicted people have been quietly freed from a system plagued by inconsistencies and relatively high rates of incarceration. So, too, have a disturbing number of political cronies.
Mr Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, spent his last hours pardoning his brother, a political financier and another tainted associate. Mr Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, pardoned Reagan-era officials convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal. Before that, president Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for Watergate in a then-controversial decision now widely seen to have been in the best interests of the country.