Dispensation

ihe act by which an exception is made to the rigor of the law in favor of some person, The Pope, according to Roman Catholic view, may release from all oaths or vows, and may sanction a marriage within the prohibited degrees of the Mosaic law, or exempt from obedience to the disciplinary enactments of the canon law. In England the monarch claimed, in former times, a similar dispensing power in civil Jaw, but the prerogative was so much abused by. James Il. that it was abolished by the Bill of Rights. The power of commuting sentences in capita] cases ig the only form in which the dispensing power still exists in England.