Volume 29
Public Law 54–37
To amend section fifty-two hundred and ninety-four of the Revised Statutes of the United States relative to the power of the Secretary of the Treasury to remit or mitigate fines, penalties, and forfeitures, and for other purposes.
Approved March 2, 1896
Statutory text
An Act
To amend section fifty-two hundred and ninety-four of the Revised Statutes of the United States relative to the power of the Secretary of the Treasury to remit or mitigate fines, penalties, and forfeitures, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That section fifty-two hundred and ninety-four of the Revised Statutes of the United States, approved December fifteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-four, be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows:
“Sec. 5294.
The Secretary of the Treasury may, upon application
Remission of fines, etc., on vessels extended to forfeitures.
therefor, remit or mitigate any fine, penalty, or forfeiture provided for in laws relating to vessels or discontinue any prosecution to recover penalties or relating to forfeitures denounced in such laws, excepting the penalty of imprisonment or of removal from office, upon such terms as he, in his discretion, shall think proper; and all rights granted to informers by such laws shall be held subject to the Secretary’s powers of remission, except in cases where the claims of any informer to the share of any penalty shall have been determined by a court of competent jurisdiction prior to the application for the remission of the penalty or forfeiture; and the Secretary shall have authority to ascertain the facts upon all such applications in such manner and under such regulations as he may deem proper.”
Approved, .