The notion of an impeachment as a legislative proceeding to address malfeasance by a public official, has been around since 1376 when the Good Parliament (or the English Parliament of 1376) initiated the first known case. More recently, modernity has witnessed an increased exercise of these constitutional mechanisms to remove offenders of the sovereign’s trust. Some regions have witnessed greater activism then others.
Ignacio Arana Araya, a Chilean political scientist writing in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs who defends the legislative process in contending with public misconduct, noted that in Latin America between 1978 and 2019, ten presidents from six countries have been removed from office through impeachments, declarations of incapacitation, or resignations attributed to the impeachment process. The United States, spanning a longer historical time frame, has had far fewer instances of the use of these constitutional devices to get rid of presidents suspected or considered to have carried out wrongdoing. There has been a good reason for this.
Continue Reading …Impeaching Kamala Harris