Article I of the U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives the exclusive power of impeachment and the Senate the exclusive power to negotiate impeachment proceedings against federal government officials. (Various state constitutions contain similar measures that allow the state legislature to remove the governor or other state government officials.) In the United States, impeachment is only the first of two phases, and a conviction in the second phase requires “the consent of two-thirds of the members present.” [34] Impeachment does not necessarily entail impeachment; It is simply a legal indictment, parallel to a criminal charge. An indicted official faces a second legislative vote (whether by the same body or another) to decide whether or not to condemn the charges contained in the impeachment proceedings. Most constitutions require a qualified majority to condemn. Although it is a criminal offence, it is not a criminal procedure; The only issue under consideration is the removal of the person and the possibility of a subsequent vote that prevents the disgraced official from re-occupying political office in the jurisdiction in which he or she was removed. Since the removal and sentencing of public officials involves the repeal of the normal constitutional procedures by which individuals hold high office (election, ratification or appointment), and because they usually require a qualified majority, they are generally reserved for those suspected of having committed serious abuses of power. [2] In the United States, for example, federal impeachment is limited to those who may have committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” [3] Members of the Government, representatives of the National Assembly (Stortinget) and judges of the Supreme Court may be charged with crimes related to their duties committed in the exercise of their functions, under the Constitution of 1814, §§ 86 and 87. The rules of procedure were modelled on the American rules and are very similar to them. Impeachment has been used eight times since 1814, most recently in 1927. Many argue that impeachment has been forgotten. In the event of dismissal, a designated court (Riksrett) comes into force.
In the United States, a party has the ability to discredit a witness through impeachment proceedings by cross-examining the witness on facts that poorly reflect the witness`s credibility or, in some cases, by introducing external evidence that negatively affects the witness` veracity or knowledge. Polish law does not define the impeachment procedure, as is the case in other countries. Violations of the law can only be investigated by the Special Commission of Parliament or (if the allegations concern persons in the highest positions of the State) by the State Court. The Supreme Court has the power to rule on the removal of persons from public office, but this is not a common practice. Following the departure of the President, Parliament met on 22 February; He reinstated the 2004 constitution, which reduced the authority of the president, and voted to impeach President Yanukovych as a de facto recognition of his resignation as president of an integrated Ukraine. The President stressed that the actions of the Parliament were illegal because they could only come into force with the signature of the President. Another example is more extreme. Let us assume that the accused is tried for possession of heroin.
The accused`s testimony will, of course, deny possession of the drug in question. Suppose the accused foolishly testifies in direct examination: “In fact, I have never owned heroin in my life.” The prosecutor may then cross-examine him with heroin evidence seized on another occasion, even if it was seized in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. [13] The Walder decision led to a decision that an accused can be charged by his confession, even if the confession was obtained in violation of his Miranda rights. [14] Harris, in turn, led to a decision authorizing similar impeachment by suppressed physical evidence in the same case as that seized by the defendant in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. [15] In the Republic of Ireland, formal impeachment only applies to the President of Ireland. Article 12 of the Irish Constitution provides that, unless the President is found to be “permanently incapacitated” by the Supreme Court, he may be removed from office only by the Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament) and solely for “declared misconduct”. Any House of the Oireachtas may remove the President, but only by a resolution passed by a majority of at least two-thirds of its total number of members; And a House of Representatives cannot consider an impeachment motion unless at least thirty of its members request it. The word “impeachment” probably derives from the Old French empeechier from the Latin word impedīre, which expresses the idea of catching or trapping by the “foot” (pes, pedis) and has analogues in the modern French verb prevent (prevent) and modern English hinder.