President Dmitry Medvedev pardoned 16 prison inmates on Monday, bringing to 28 the number of people he has pardoned this year after a dearth of pardons under former President Vladimir Putin.

Medvedev’s spokeswoman Natalya Timakova called the latest pardons a “humane” gesture. “The pardoned people were jailed for minor offenses,” she said, Itar-Tass reported.

The Kremlin did not release further information about the inmates.

Medvedev pardoned 12 inmates in April.

Granting a pardon is a constitutional right of the president, although different heads of state have used it differently. Before Putin reformed the pardon system in 2002, convicts were freed by the thousands; 13,000 were freed in 2000 alone. Under the reorganization, the central pardon commission created by former President Boris Yeltsin and comprised of prominent public figures was disbanded and the right to nominate candidates for pardon was granted instead to governors. The number of pardons fell to nine in 2006 and none in 2007. Only one man, who had been convicted of theft, was pardoned by Putin’s decree in 2008.

Medvedev said last weekend that he would not consider pardoning former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky until he admitted his guilt. Khodorkovsky says his case is politically motivated.