Impeachment

This article is about the process of charging a public official. For challenging a witness in a legal proceeding, see Witness impeachment.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff (left) and South Korean president Park Geun-hye (right) were both impeached and removed from office in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

Impeachment is a process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct.[1][2] It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements.[3][4][5][6]

In Europe and Latin America, impeachment tends to be confined to ministerial officials[7] as the unique nature of their positions may place ministers beyond the reach of the law to prosecute, or their misconduct is not codified into law as an offense except through the unique expectations of their high office. Both "peers and commoners" have been subject to the process, however.[8] From 1990 to 2020, there have been at least 272 impeachment charges against 132 different heads of state in 63 countries.[9] Most democracies (with the notable exception of the United States) involve the courts (often a national constitutional court) in some way.[10][1]

In Latin America, which includes almost 40% of the world's presidential systems, ten presidents from seven countries were removed from office by their national legislatures via impeachments or declarations of incapacity between 1978 and 2019.[11]

National legislations differ regarding both the consequences and definition of impeachment, but the intent is nearly always to expeditiously vacate the office. In most nations the process begins in the lower house of a bicameral assembly who bring charges of misconduct, then the upper house administers an impeachment trial and sentencing.[7] Most commonly, an official is considered impeached after the house votes to accept the charges, and impeachment itself does not remove the official from office.[7]

Because impeachment involves a departure from the normal constitutional procedures by which individuals achieve high office (election, ratification, or appointment) and because it generally requires a supermajority, it is usually reserved for those deemed to have committed serious abuses of their office.[12] In the United States, for example, impeachment at the federal level is limited to those who may have committed "Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors"—the latter phrase referring to offenses against the government or the constitution, grave abuses of power, violations of the public trust, or other political crimes, even if not indictable criminal offenses.[4][13] Under the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives has the sole power of impeachments while the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments (i.e., to acquit or convict); the validity of an impeachment trial is a political question that is nonjusticiable (i.e., is not reviewable by the courts).[14] In the United States, impeachment is a remedial rather than penal process,[14][15]: 8  intended to "effectively 'maintain constitutional government' by removing individuals unfit for office";[15]: 8  persons subject to impeachment and removal remain "liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."[15]

Impeachment is provided for in the constitutional laws of many countries including Brazil, France, India, Ireland, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. It is distinct from the motion of no confidence procedure available in some countries whereby a motion of censure can be used to remove a government and its ministers from office. Such a procedure is not applicable in countries with presidential forms of government like the United States.[16]

  1. ^ a b "impeachment | Definition, Process, History, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 17 November 2021. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  2. ^ Landau, Sidney; Brantley, Sheila; Davis, Samuel; Koenigsberg, Ruth, eds. (1997). Funk & Wagnall's Standard Desk Dictionary. Vol. 1 (1996 ed.). United States: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. p. 322. ISBN 978-0-308-10353-5. 1. To charge (a high public official) before a legally constituted tribunal with crime or misdemeanor in office. 2. To bring discredit upon the honesty or validity of.
  3. ^ Michael J. Gerhardt. "Impeachment is the law. Saying 'political process' only helps Trump's narrative". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 14 January 2021. Retrieved 15 February 2021. while it's true that politics are bound up in how impeachment plays out, it's a myth that impeachment is just political. Rather, it's the principal legal remedy that the Constitution expressly specifies to hold presidents accountable
  4. ^ a b Michael J. Gerhardt (2019). The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis (3d ed.). University of Chicago Press. pp. 106–07. ISBN 9780226554976. The ratification debates support the conclusion that 'other high Crimes and Misdemeanors' were not limited to indictable offenses but rather included great offenses against the federal government. ... Justices James Wilson and Joseph Story expressed agreement with Hamilton's understanding of impeachment as a political proceeding and impeachable offenses as political crimes.
  5. ^ Gerhardt, Michael (2018). Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0190903657. LCCN 2018013560. Impeachment has elements of both legal and political proceedings. As a result, it is a unique process.
  6. ^ "U.S. Senate: About Impeachment". www.senate.gov. Archived from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  7. ^ a b c Davidson, Roger (2005). "Impeachment". World Book Encyclopedia. Vol. I 10 (2005 ed.). Chicago. p. 92. ISBN 0-7166-0105-2.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ "Impeachment". UK Parliament Glossary. Archived from the original on 8 February 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2021. Impeachment is when a peer or commoner is accused of 'high crimes and misdemeanours, beyond the reach of the law or which no other authority in the state will prosecute.'
  9. ^ Lawler, David (19 December 2019). "What impeaching leaders looks like around the world". Axios. Archived from the original on 13 January 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  10. ^ Huq, Aziz; Ginsburg, Tom; Landau, David. "Designing Better Impeachments: How other countries' constitutions protect against political free-for-alls". Boston Review. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2021. Constitutions in 9 democracies give a court—often the country's constitutional court—the power to begin an impeachment; another 61 constitutions place the court at the end of the process.
  11. ^ Ignacio Arana Araya, To Impeach or Not to Impeach: Lessons from Latin America Archived 3 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (13 December 2019).
  12. ^ Erskine, Daniel H. (2008). "The Trial of Queen Caroline and the Impeachment of President Clinton: Law As a Weapon for Political Reform". Washington University Global Studies Law Review. 7 (1). ISSN 1546-6981. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
  13. ^ Peter Brandon Bayer (23 May 2019). "The Constitution dictates that impeachment must not be partisan". The Conversation. Noted scholars Ronald Rotunda and John Nowak explain that the Framers wisely intended the phrase "or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" to include undermining the Constitution and similar, "great offenses against the federal government (like abuse of power) even if they are not necessarily crimes.' For instance, Alexander Hamilton asserted that, while likely to be criminal acts, impeachable wrongdoings 'are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men ... from the abuse or violation of some public trust.' James Madison urged that impeachment is appropriate for 'loss of capacity, or corruption ... [that] might be fatal to the republic.'
  14. ^ a b "Impeachment". U.S. Constitution Annotated. Congressional Research Service. Archived from the original on 14 February 2021. Retrieved 15 February 2021 – via Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.
  15. ^ a b c Cole, J. P.; Garvey, T. (29 October 2015). "Report No. R44260, Impeachment and Removal" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. pp. 15–16. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 December 2019. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  16. ^ Hauss, Charles (29 December 2006). "Vote of confidence". Britannica. Archived from the original on 14 January 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2021.