So far during his term of office, Levits has reviewed a total of 345 pardon requests, and has granted 17 pardons as a result, so about one in 20 applications is successful.
His immediate predecessor, Raimonds Vējonis, granted 22 pardons out of 697 applications, meaning just over one in 30 applications was successful. Before that, there was a roughly one in 20 chance of getting a pardon from Andris Bērziņš and a one in 10 chance of a thumbs-up from Valdis Zatlers.
Under the terms of the constitution, the president does have the power to grant pardons to convicted persons. The President of Latvia can replace the uncompleted phase of imprisonment with a different and softer form of punishment, exempt the offender from serving the primary or additional punishment wholly or partially, or expunge the punitive record of the person concerned.