Impeachment Proceedings Research Articles

ANALYSIS OF THE CONCLUSION OF THE PLENUM OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT IN RELATION TO THE VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION BY THE PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA AND INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE

From 2013 until the present, the dispute on the separation of competencies between the leaders of the state government has been ongoing in political life, as well as on an international scale in the field of foreign relations. The field of foreign relations is of national importance and is directly related to the state’s image and foreign policy. The conclusion of the international treaties, as well as the appointment of the ambassadors and representation of the state, has become the subject of dispute at various times. State representation by the President in foreign relations has led to a Constitutional Reference submitted by the Parliament of Georgia to the Constitutional Court of Georgia, alleging a violation of the Constitution by the President for the first time in the country’s history. As a result, according to the conclusion of the Constitutional Court of Georgia dated October 16, 2023, President Ms. Zurabishvili violated the Constitution of Georgia by exercising representation powers without the consent of the Government. Based on the above, this thesis will analyze the meaning of the representation power in foreign relations, the President’s constitutional status, and the President’s role in foreign relations, acting as the socalled “neutral arbitrator”. This thesis will include a discussion on the roles of the Parliament and the Constitutional Court of Georgia in the political-legal process of Presidential impeachment proceedings. It will also examine the conclusions and decisions of Constitutional Courts in various states regarding alleged constitutional violations by Presidents and disputes over competence.

Sexualized Racial-Colonial Grotesque in the Company Archives

Building on Michel Foucault and Ann Laura Stoler’s recontextualizing of the Foucauldian theory of sexuality, I propose the category of the “sexualized racial-colonial grotesque” to unravel the double of Warren Hastings’s crime of corruption that Edmund Burke indexes onto his construction of Munny Begum. Throughout the infamous impeachment proceedings, 1787–95, Burke is deeply disturbed by Hastings’ relationships with Indians from varied caste-gender-class categories. These relationships disrupt mobilities that are historically and socially permitted in Indian and British codes of conduct. The most unhinged example of Burke’s anxieties around the spilling over of private relationships into political decisions is Hastings’s relationship with Begum. Through this construction, Burke poses Begum’s “deviant” sexuality as generative to and of power.

The rise and fall of political outsiders: Political opportunity structure and (de-)mobilization in Paraguay (2008–2012)

Unlike left outsiders in contexts of steadfast traditional opposition in Latin America, Fernando Lugo refrained from intensifying the conflict with the political establishment and mobilizing subaltern groups to push through progressive policies after winning the 2008 elections. Ultimately, conservative interests pushed through impeachment proceedings and forced him out of office prematurely, and Lugo yielded to their will instead of using the interbranch stalemate to instigate popular resistance. For their part, the popular sectors did not mobilize to pressure the Lugo government, nor did they stand firmly against the president’s impeachment. The article aims to answer why Lugo flopped as a political broker and why Paraguayans did not mobilize to Lugo’s defense by developing a two-level argument that combines the institutional supply side that determines the actors’ mobilization capacity and the demand side of movement issue-framing that conditions actors’ willingness to mobilize. First, the organizational and representative pathologies of the left parties persisted into Lugo’s reign and curtailed the capacity of the mobilization brokers to forge ties between otherwise separate organizations in society and to serve as a veto gate in power centers. Second, community leaders and social actors did not engage in active issue-framing processes to construct new meanings to orient their collective action. The article draws on interview data, public opinion polls, and archival works to substantiate the argument and contributes to social movement literature by highlighting the role of political leadership’s strategic choices and its interactions with opponents and allies (inside and outside power centers) in realizing favorable political opportunity and remolding clientelistic ties to mobilize social constituencies.

An Evaluation of Judicial Intervention in The Impeachment Process in Constitutional Democracies: A Case of Nigeria

Impeachment is an effective mechanism for checks and balances in a constitutional democracy. It is settled that the courts have no power to intervene in the process by questioning the exercise of the powers of the legislature. However, there has been a gradual departure from the general norm in recent years. The involvement of the courts in the impeachment process provides an opportunity to review the legislative process of the impeachment to prevent legislative rascality or abuse of the process and infringing on the fundamental rights of the target of the impeachment. Thus, judicial involvement in the process underscores the importance of the constitutional doctrine of checks and balances. Notable decided cases in Nigeria on impeachment proceedings since the case of Adegbenro v Akintola, were examined and reviewed. Relevant constitutional provisions on impeachment and judicial decisions thereon were highlighted. It was noted that impeachment could not, hitherto, be a subject of litigation in any court in Nigeria on account of constitutional ouster clauses. It was noted further that even though ouster clauses, are regarded as impediments to the administration of justice and by extension democracy, the courts were quick to invoke ouster clauses to decline jurisdiction in matters relating to impeachment. However, the paper found that the decision in Inakoju v Adeleke, which decided that ouster clauses need to be properly scrutinised by courts, besides being a watershed in the judicial approach to impeachment cases, is capable of checkmating the legislature’s seeming highhandedness in the impeachment process in Nigeria.

Love Forever, Fear Never: Brazilian Musical Responses to a Political Coup

On May 12, 2016, the Brazilian Senate initiated impeachment proceedings of President Dilma Rousseff, installing Michel Temer as interim president. Temer’s agenda included Provsisional Measure No. 726, which shuttered Brazil’s Ministry of Culture, calamatious news for Brazilian culture makers, who relied on the ministry as a source of advocacy and financial support. In response, activists occupied state offices across the country in protest. At Palácio Gustavo Capanema, the Rio de Janeiro headquarters of the ministry, the occupation lasted more than 100 days. Culture makers from myriad disciplines and backgrounds showed support for the activists, with music and musicians playing a particularly important role in raising the profile and spirits of the occupation. The present article examines this moment through an analysis of a May 22 performance by composer Jards Macalé. Drawing on ethnographic work at the occupation and in-depth interviews with participants, it argues that musical performance, articulated through a politicized notion of love, served an important community-building function at these protests. It also contributes to debates by theorists such as Lauren Berlant and Sara Ahmed on the use of love to motivate political action. This language, while key to creating the possibility for identification, can be undercut by the lived exclusions of events like these when they do not include the presence of the people most affected by the policies being protested.

Trust and Distrust: Corruption in Office in Britain and its Empire, 1600‐1850. By MarkKnights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021. 512 pp. £35. ISBN: 978‐0‐19879‐624‐4.

Trust and Distrust: Corruption in Office in Britain and its Empire, 1600‐1850. By MarkKnights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021. 512 pp. £35. ISBN: 978‐0‐19879‐624‐4.

The Concept of Impeachment in The Indonesia's Constitutional System From The Perspective of Fiqh Siyasah

This study discusses the Siyasah Fiqh Review of the concept of Impeachment in the Indonesian State Administration. The aim is to find out and understand the mechanism for impeachment/dismissal of the President or Vice President in Indonesia's constitutional system as stipulated in Articles 7 a and 7 b of the 1945 Constitution and the fiqh siyasa perspective on these rules. This research belongs to normative legal research that uses normative, juridical, and historical approaches. Data were collected using literary techniques, then analyzed descriptively and qualitatively. The results of this study indicate that the practice of impeaching the President in the past occurred more often due to political issues, namely the disputes between the legislature and the executive regarding the issue that the President had violated the law. In the past two impeachment proceedings, there has been no precise regulation regarding the impeachment mechanism of the President in the country's Constitution. After the amendment, the issue of impeachment was adopted in Articles 7A and 7B of the 1945 Constitution. Article 7A limits the grounds for impeachment, while Article 7B complicates impeachment by the presence of a judicial institution. From the perspective of Fiqh,siyasa, the head of State's impeachment can be carried out if it meets the criteria and reasons that Syara has determined'

Political Question Doctrine and Judicial Attitude to Political Controversies in Nigeria: Implications for Constitutionalism

The political question doctrine has become one of the jurisprudential issues in a constitutional democracy, as the courts may not want to exercise judicial review to determine the constitutionality of the action of the other organs of government or a statute before it. As a legal instrument, judicial review has been used to expand or reduce the powers of the governments, but the courts decide to exercise this power discretionarily on the ground that it falls within the province of politics. This study aimed to analyze 'political question' and judicial attitude to political controversies in Nigeria by unraveling how the doctrine of political question has been applied in three main areas–impeachment proceedings, political parties' primary elections, and post-election matters. It also analyzed the judiciary's attitudes to political controversies and evaluated the implications of the political question doctrine to constitutionalism. The study argued that this attitude negates the principle of constitutionalism as it contends that the courts' deliberate avoidance of a political question is typical of the judiciary in Nigeria in most political controversies. Consequently, the courts abuse the issues of discretion and non-justiciable, so that it is imperative to unravel the intricacies of the political question doctrine by undertaking a comprehensive jurisprudential analysis by highlighting the most controversial aspects and how the court's attitude in political controversies undermines its commitment to constitutionalism. Furthermore, it contradicted checks and balances, fundamental human rights, and the rule of law. This study concluded that the doctrine of political question would be judiciously used by the court and not to avoid determining contentious political issues that may likely derail Nigeria's democratic process and stability.

Kenya’s Gubernatorial Impeachments

The Constitution of Kenya, the County Governments Act and the Standing Orders of the respective County Assemblies and Senate provide for the scope of the constitutional grounds and the actual procedure for removal of county governors. A transparent procedure for the removal of governors is vital to avoid unnecessary political uncertainties and controversies. The removal process is quasi-judicial with two political bodies: respective County Assemblies and Senate playing an active role. The significance of the role of the superior courts in the removal process cannot be overemphasised. Superior courts have jurisdiction to interpret the Constitution and other laws, check whether the grounds for impeachment have been substantiated and the procedure for removal rightly followed while protecting the rights of persons subjected to a removal process. The Kenyan experience has shown that the impeachment processes are prone to political uncertainties and controversies, and abuses by both the respective County Assemblies and Senate. Most of the impeachment proceedings, so far, have breached the laid down procedure and have been based on unsubstantiated charges. In certain instances, superior courts have been called upon to correct the abuse of powers by the political bodies. To what extent have the superior courts been effective in their supervisory role of checking against abuse of power in this regard? This article unpacks the sui generis (political, constitutional, and quasi-judicial) nature of the impeachment process, and demystifies the role of superior courts as the guardians against abuse of powers by the respective County Assemblies and the Senate.

PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS OF LITHUANIAN LEGAL REGULATION OF IMPEACHMENT PROCEDURE TO A MEMBER OF LOCAL MUNICIPAL COUNCIL

Although members and mayors of municipal councils are not included in the list of persons who may be subject of Impeachment proceedings under the Constitution, a peculiar variant of the institute of Impeachment is the procedure of premature loss of authority of a mayor or a member of the local municipal council, which is established in Article 25 (1) of the Law on Local Self‐ Government of the Republic of Lithuania. In a democratic system it is vitally important that every local politician who takes an oath takes full responsibility, regardless of whether he works in the majority or minority of the municipal council and/or to which political force he belongs. The problematic aspect is that it is very complicated to initiate the impeachment proceedings on a politician who belongs to the majority and has broken the oath, and there are almost no practical possibilities to complete it as such possibilities remain only theoretical and very poorly feasible. The main tasks of the research is to determine practical and theoretical possibilities to initiate Impeachment proceedings against politiciansin the majority;to revealthe essential problematic aspects of legal regulation of Impeachment procedure to a member (or a mayor) of municipal council and to draw some solutions related to these questions analysed for Lithuanian legislator in order to improve national legal regulation. The research was carried out by employing logical, comparative, system analysis, monitoring, linguistic, empirical, synthesis and generalization methods.

Problems of the impeachment proceedings from the perspective of national integration — Focusing on impeachment of the President —

Problems of the impeachment proceedings from the perspective of national integration — Focusing on impeachment of the President —

Democracies in danger: are judicial dialogues means to refrain setbacks in Latin America?

The processes of democratization in Latin America are accompanied by the rise of internationally protected human rights and their respective monitoring institutions. The Inter-American System of Human Rights is one of the central bodies in the region. In 2016 and 2017, two requests for advisory opinions regarding political trials and impeachment proceedings were presented before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This article aims to verify the reasons invoked by the Court to refrain itself from issuing the two advisory opinions. As of the theorizations about judicial dialogues, the study of the attributes of reciprocity and possibility of divergence points to the conclusion that the silence of the Court regarding democratic setbacks has a lot to say about the deference granted to its member States. The two refusals of requests of advisory opinions work as dialogues between the Inter-American Court and the States of the region that face democratic challenges.

The Legality of Presidential Self-Pardons

The traditional understanding of the Article II Pardon Clause is that the President may grant clemency to anyone who has committed a federal offense. Yet, a question exists whether that “anyone” includes the President. The issue has arisen on three occasions: in the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon was under investigation for his involvement in crimes associated with Watergate; in the 1980s, when the Iran-Contra Investigation raised the question whether President George H.W. Bush knew about an illegal arms-for-hostages arrangement; and more recently when President Donald Trump publicly stated that he had the legal authority to pardon himself to end a Department of Justice investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election. No court has ruled on the legitimacy of a presidential self-pardon, and commentators have disagreed over the issue. In my opinion, the Article II Pardon Clause allows the President to pardon himself, but the Article I Impeachment and Removal Clauses permits Congress to remove the President for doing so. Clemency was a prerogative of the English Crown. The King’s grant of a pardon was conclusive and not subject to revision by Parliament or the English courts. The Pardon Clause reflects the prerogative nature of that power. Its text contains only two restrictions—one limiting clemency to federal offenses, the other denying the President the ability to halt impeachment proceedings—and neither one prevents self-pardons. Supreme Court case law does not justify creating a self-pardon exception. As interpreted by the Court, the Pardon Clause is the last surviving remnant of the royal prerogatives. To be sure, the Take Care Clause imposes a fiduciary obligation on a President, one comparable to the obligation borne by a private trustee, to act in the best interests of his client—the public—and a President can breach that duty by excusing himself from criminal liability. But the Impeachment and Removal Clauses provide the appropriate remedy for any abuse of presidential authority, including any misuse of the pardon power. That conclusion will not satisfy anyone who believes that there must be a judicial remedy available for every wrong, but it is the best reading of the text of our Constitution.

Elite versus mass polarization on the Brazilian impeachment proceedings of 2016

Political events are often topics of heated discussions around the globe, revealing opinion divergences of the population. These contrasting ideas characterize political polarization, which has been boosted by the popularization of Internet access and social media over the last few years. This work studies political polarization by developing computational methods to analyze online and offline data in the context of the 2016 impeachment proceedings of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. We quantify the polarization among the Brazilian politicians at the House of Representatives (offline analysis) and among the Brazilian general public on Twitter (online analysis). We also looked at the popularity of politicians on Twitter and contrasted it with the polarization of the general public on this same media. Our results show that the politicians’ polarization increased after December of 2015, coinciding with the launch of the impeachment proceedings. The general public presented high values of polarization during the whole period, also revealing that the population was more polarized than its representatives. The politicians’ popularity analysis also shows that anti-impeachment politicians had a higher impact on the public opinion for the whole period of study than pro-impeachment politicians, which were popular only during a short but critical three months period.

The Lava Jato investigation and the political instability in Latin America

Anti-corruption investigations have always been one of the main causes of political crises in Latin America. However, the last episodes of presidential removal have shown a new activism of the parliaments, which have re-interpreted the constitutional provisions on impeachment proceedings in order to legitimize a change in the governmental agenda. This practice affects the balance between the two representative powers, as it fails to observe the limits of the presidential accountability and paves the way to new instabilities.

Seeking Accountability, Legitimacy, and Transparency: Congressional Intervention in the Philippines’ South China Sea Policy

Abstract Why and how did the Philippine Congress intervene in the policies of Arroyo (hedging), Aquino III (balancing), and Duterte (appeasement) on the South China Sea disputes? In particular, why and how did the Philippine Congress challenge each president’s attempt to forge either cooperation or confrontation towards China? Guided by the domestic politics – foreign policy nexus, this article explores the dynamic role of the Philippine Congress in the country’s foreign policy process. It combines comparative case-study and content analysis methods to examine relevant congressional records, government documents, public speeches, and news reports. This article finds that the impetus behind Congress’ intervention was to seek accountability, legitimacy, and transparency via registering a bill or passing a law, filing legislative resolutions, holding congressional hearings, calling for impeachment proceedings, delivering privilege speeches, and issuing press releases. This article offers its empirical and theoretical contributions to broaden current understanding of the relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy.

Impeaching a Federal Judge: Some Lessons from History

In August 2014, Federal District Judge Mark Fuller was arrested on a charge of misdemeanor battery after his wife called 911 from an Atlanta hotel room and told the operator, “He’s beating on me.” Judge Fuller has agreed to enter a pre-trial diversion program; if he completes the program, the criminal case against him will be dismissed. But Judge Fuller may face other consequences. The Acting Chief Judge of the Eleventh Circuit has initiated proceedings under the federal judicial misconduct statute. And some members of Congress and editorial writers have said that if Judge Fuller does not resign from the bench, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings. Federal judges serve during “good behavior,” and they can be impeached and removed from office only for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” If the domestic-violence charges are substantiated, would that constitute an impeachable offense? In this statement, submitted at a hearing of the Task Force on Judicial Impeachment of the House Judiciary Committee, the author addresses some of the questions raised by a proposal to impeach a federal judge. What is the meaning of the constitutional language? No one argues that Judge Fuller has committed treason or bribery, so the question is whether his conduct falls within the category of “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The author discusses the evidence from the founding generation and from the commentators, and he briefly surveys the impeachment precedents. These historical materials suggest two broad (and overlapping) categories of conduct that may justify impeachment. The first is serious abuse of power. The second is conduct that demonstrates that an official is “unworthy to fill” the office that he holds. Another question is the relevance of the pending criminal charges. Can the House rely on a criminal conviction as the basis for impeachment? Can the House proceed with impeachment if the criminal charges are dropped? The author concludes that the House must exercise an independent judgment; it is not bound by determinations of other actors in other proceedings. The statement was submitted to the Task Force on Judicial Impeachment at a hearing on the possible impeachment of Judge Samuel B. Kent of the Southern District of Texas. The written statement is followed by supplementary material that includes the author’s oral testimony and the colloquies that followed. Based on the testimony at the hearing and other evidence, the House approved four articles of impeachment. Judge Kent resigned from the bench before his Senate trial.

Book Review: A Citizen’s Guide to Impeachment, by Barbara Radnofsky

High crimes and misdemeanors. We hear this phrase—outlined in the U.S. Constitution—used by politicians and news media when discussing impeachment, but what conduct is included in high crimes and misdemeanors? Must it be a serious crime? A misdemeanor? What is the process surrounding this phrase? A Citizen’s Guide to Impeachment, by Barbara Radnofsky, provides useful guidance in understanding the impeachment process, its historical background, and key lessons from the formal impeachment proceedings held throughout U.S. history. As the title suggests, the book is intended to serve as a “guide for citizens in a participatory government,” and it meets that goal in fine fashion.

A complex network approach to political analysis: Application to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies

In this paper, we introduce a network-based methodology to study how political entities evolve over time. We constructed networks of voting data from the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, where deputies are nodes and edges are represented by voting similarity among deputies. The Brazilian Chamber of deputies is characterized by a multi-party political system. Thus, we would expect a broad spectrum of ideas to be represented. Our results, however, revealed that plurality of ideas is not present at all: the effective number of communities representing ideas based on agreement/disagreement in propositions is about 3 over the entire studied time span. The obtained results also revealed different patterns of coalitions between distinct parties. Finally, we also found signs of early party isolation before presidential impeachment proceedings effectively started. We believe that the proposed framework could be used to complement the study of political dynamics and even applied in similar social networks where individuals are organized in a complex manner.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE ROLE OF COURTS IN ENSURING COMPLIANCE WITH THE CONSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPEACHMENT IN NIGERIA

The constitution confers on the legislative arm of government impeachment power and prescribes when and how it should be exercised. Disputes arising from the exercise of this power are submitted to the courts for adjudication in line with their inherent powers. The issue of compliance with these constitutional requirements is a cause for concern as most of the impeachment proceedings conducted so far in Nigeria had been challenged in court for noncompliance. The question is, could this role played by the Nigerian courts ensure compliance? The objective of this paper is, therefore, to determine whether the courts could ensure compliance with the constitutional requirement for impeachment. In order to achieve the objective of this paper, doctrinal methodology is used whereby relevant materials were analyzed and conclusion made. The result showed that the role played by the courts cannot ensure compliance with the constitutional requirements because the courts only intervene after the conclusion of the exercise due to disrespect to court orders from the legislature. This is largely due to lack of specific role conferred on the courts in impeachment proceedings. It is, therefore, recommended that the constitution be amended to vest on the Supreme Court the specific role of ensuring that all the constitutional requirements for impeachment have been duly complied with before a public officer is removed.