He impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump It’s a novelty in the United States, but these cases have become quite common around the world. Over the past two decades, several dozen countries have prosecuted a former head of government or state.
And while Mr. Trump’s allies has said repeatedly that such charges are the work of a “Banana Rebublic,” several of the cases have occurred in countries that are routinely among the freest, most democratic, and wealthiest in the world.
Just in the last 15 years, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac from France, Geun Hye Park and Lee Myungbak from South Korea and Silvio Berlusconi from Italy have been prosecuted for corruption and found guilty. The list of those criminally charged also includes former democratically elected leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa and taiwan.
In the 1980s, kakuei tanaka, former Prime Minister of Japan, was sentenced. and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is currently on trial on corruption charges.
“It’s always a big problem when a former president or prime minister is accused, but in most democracies it’s normal for them to be credibly accused of serious crimes,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard who has written about dozens of countries transition to democracy. The United States, he said, has been an outlier in its reluctance to indict a former leader.
“Political systems have to handle it,” he added. “They have to. Because the alternative, to say that some people are above the law, is much worse.”
Trials can reflect that the rule of law is strong, that even the powerful are not above the courts and can be held to account. But they can also show that the rule of law is weak, that the legal system is easily used as a weapon against political enemies.
“Many people will immediately assume that this is for political reasons, and it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to persuade them that this is a legitimate, apolitical prosecution,” said John B. Bellinger III, deputy principal investigator for the Council of Foreign Affairs in Washington and a senior legal official during the administration of President George W. Bush.
That reaction is likely to be more severe, say political scientists, in a country where politics is highly polarized and partisan. If the defendant’s political allies are willing to watch the legal process play out rather than jump to the accused leader’s defense, claims of prosecutorial bias generally gain less traction.
Nathalie Tocci, an Italian political scientist, has some sobering advice for well-meaning prosecutors looking into these cases: “I don’t think they can do it right.”
That is not the same as advising against it.
“If you believe that, legally speaking, there was a crime and you have to proceed, just do so,” Ms. Tocci said. “But there’s always a story of justice and a story of politics, and one should try to keep them separate, but it’s impossible.”
Authoritarian leaders have historically suppressed their opponents without even caring for the appearance of due process. But in recent years, dozens of those governments instead they have used the courtswith predetermined verdicts, to publicly condemn their ousted adversaries and scare others into submission.
It is in democracies, where public opinion matters most and there is at least some expectation of impartial justice, that the job of a prosecutor is more delicate. Impartial application of the law can be painted as political retribution, and vice versa, putting additional pressure on prosecutors who decide whether to proceed.
Berlusconi, a three-time prime minister, has been indicted multiple times, was found guilty of tax fraud, had other guilty verdicts overturned on appeal, and escaped other charges only by have changed the laws.
Still, like Netanyahu and Trump, he has spent years presenting himself as a victim hunted by a politicized and out-of-control system, using that claim to rally his supporters, surviving scandal after scandal.
That combination, Tocci said, can seriously damage public faith in the justice system: Supporters of the defendant see the system as illegitimate, while opponents of the leader see it as ineffective.
“If there is an acquittal, it may be proof that the justice system worked,” he said, “but people will claim that it was all for nothing and that it was politically driven.”
However, he added: “Looking at Berlusconi’s cases, I would still say it was the right thing to do, even if it didn’t make any difference, even if it prolonged his political life.”
Legal experts point to vast ethical gray areas. A prosecution may focus on what may be an actual crime, and yet be politically motivated or open to question.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was convicted of money laundering and corruption, but the country’s highest court dismissed the charges in 2021 due to the bias of the judge, after it was revealed that the lawyer had extensive improper private communication with prosecutors, consulting them on the strategy. Mr. Lula was released from prison after 19 months, he ran for president again last year. and won.
Another murky area involves forms of corruption that are practiced widely and with impunity.
Justin Vaïsse, a historian and former French Foreign Ministry official, said Lula “violated some rules and principles, but everyone did the same and others probably fared worse,” making him what some called a target. politically motivated. selective prosecution.
Chirac, he added, did not fall for the “weaponization of the legal system”, but for changing ethical standards. After serving as the president of France, Chirac was convicted of creating bogus jobs for political allies when he was mayor of Paris decades earlier.
“Some of the things that Chirac did were common practice at the time,” Vaisse said.
To ensure impartiality, or the appearance of impartiality, prosecutors, like judges, must be “insulated from political pressures,” Bellinger said, adding that “to the extent possible” they themselves should be apolitical. .
He acknowledged that it was difficult for officials to convince the public of their impartiality when they face constant accusations of bias and when they are appointed by elected officials or are themselves elected.
But those challenges, difficult as they may be, cannot deter the justice system from taking on legitimate cases against political leaders, he and other experts said.
“People will fire random shots in the process every time they get arrested; that’s common,” Levitsky said. “But if you rob a bank and I arrest you, and you threaten to throw a hand grenade at the courthouse, the problem is not that I arrested you for robbing a bank.”
