A further step in the exercise of this power was taken when attempts were made to rescind the decisions of the _judices_ of criminal commissions by decrees of the people. This was first attempted in 88 B.C. by the tribune P. Sulpicius Rufus, who carried a _plebiscitum_ for the restoration of exiles who had been condemned by the Varian commission.[1223] Other tentative steps in the same direction led up to Caesar’s bill of 49, by which he effected the restoration of those who had been condemned under the Pompeian laws of 52 B.C.[1224] The instances of this period generally illustrate the rescission of the decrees of special commissions, which were themselves political weapons evoked by party conflict, but M. Antonius when tribune is said to have effected the restoration of a man who had been condemned for an ordinary crime,[1225] and, therefore, presumably by an ordinary _quaestio perpetua_, and it seems clear that by Cicero’s time this power of restitution by the _comitia_ had come to be regarded as practically one of pardon. Each of the three legislative assemblies was competent to “restore” (_restituere_). The proposals are usually tribunician, but Caesar also employed praetorian rogations (probably before the _comitia tributa_) for the purpose.[1226] Two powers analogous to that of the rescission of a sentence are the remission of outlawry and amnesty. The outlawry referred to is not that following on _aquae et ignis interdictio_, which was an act of the people and the confirmation of a criminal sentence, but that consequent on a decree of the Senate, which had pronounced individuals to be _hostes_. Although we might have expected that the Senate, which passed, would be the body to rescind such a decree, we find the belief that the restitution of the outlawed required a _lex_ or _plebiscitum_. Marius pretended that such a permit was necessary for his entrance into Rome in 87 B.C.,[1227] and Octavian in 43 B.C. had a law passed which rescinded the outlawry of Dolabella.[1228] Amnesty is an act which implies that no trial and no condemnation, whether pronounced by a court or other body, have taken place; it gives immunity from the consequence of criminal acts that have not yet been judged. This, however, is a prerogative, not of the people, but of the Senate. It was a decree of this body that gave an immunity (not subsequently respected) to Caesar’s murderers in 44 B.C.,[1229] and a similar act in 33 B.C. granted an amnesty to senators who had during the civil war raised troops at their own cost.[1230]