Impeachment Proceedings Against Heads Of State In 2015-2019

The House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a press briefing on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2019) The House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

Impeachment is a legal procedure during which charges are brought against top officials by a country's parliament. Impeachment, if it is actually used in a country, may be viewed as a criterion of a developed democracy, as the idea of the procedure is to exercise control over the country's leadership by democratic political institutions.

On September 24, 2019, the US Congress initiated an impeachment procedure for Trump and Pelosi delivered a special address. She believes that Trump's conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy � during which the US leader allegedly demanded an investigation of former US Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, in order to boost his own 2020 re-election bid � serves as a valid reason for impeachment.

On March 15, 2018, the Peruvian Congress adopted a resolution to consider the impeachment of the country's president, Pedro Kuczynski, in a second attempt to oust him from the presidency. He withstood a similar vote on suspicion of corruption in December 2017, after the Brazilian construction firm, Odebrecht, informed the Peruvian parliament that it had transferred a total of $4.8 million to companies linked to Kuczynski between 2004 and 2012. The Congress scheduled the reconsideration of Kuczynski's impeachment on the official pretext of "moral incapacity" for March 22. On March 21, without waiting for the congressional vote, Kuczynski officially announced his resignation.

On November 21, 2017, the Zimbabwean parliament decided to launch impeachment procedures against President Robert Mugabe. The situation in Zimbabwe worsened in mid-November when it became known that the military had taken control of a state-owned broadcaster in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare and of the president's residence. On November 19, the country's ruling party, the Zimbabwean African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), dismissed Mugabe from his post as party leader and called on him to resign from the presidency. On November 21, the Zimbabwean parliament approved Mugabe's impeachment, after which the leader stepped down.

On December 9, 2016, the South Korean parliament called for the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye with 234 lawmakers having supported the initiative, 56 more having voted against it and two more having abstained. Park was impeached after the eruption of a corruption scandal involving her close associate, Choi Soon-sil, who was allegedly meddling in state affairs despite holding no official post, and helping extort money from big corporations.

The Constitutional Court confirmed Park's impeachment on March 10, 2017. She was arrested twenty days later. On April 6, 2018, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced Park to 24 years in prison.

On November 23, 2016, a French parliamentary committee dismissed an impeachment call against President Francois Hollande as it failed to receive a majority vote. The National Assembly's Bureau declared that in a vote of� 13 to eight, the proposed resolution was inadmissible. In October of that year, French Republican parliamentarian Pierre Lellouche sharply criticized Hollande's remarks regarding secret operations and the elimination of terrorists, and initiated a draft resolution to the High Court, calling for Hollande's impeachment over accusations of the breach of security through disclosing classified information to journalists.

On October 25, 2016, the Venezuelan National Assembly voted to initiate impeachment proceedings against the country's president, Nicolas Maduro, and to call the head of state to a congressional meeting on November 1. Congress declared that Maduro abandoned his post by refusing to carry out his duties. The Venezuelan authorities, in turn, stated that impeachment proceedings against the president were not provided for by law since such a legal concept did "not exist in the country's constitution." It was reported that the Venezuelan parliament suspended the proceedings against the president on November 1. The speaker of the National Assembly, Henry Ramos, said that parliament's decision was not a "surrender," but a desire to find a way out of this situation.

On August 31, 2016, the Brazilian Senate voted for impeaching President Dilma Rousseff. A total of 61 members of the Senate voted for ousting the president while only 20 supported Rousseff. The lawmakers, however, allowed Rousseff to serve as a public official. The investigation into Rousseff's alleged manipulations with the state budget was launched in 2015. A day after the impeachment was announced, Rousseff filed an appeal to the Supreme Court asking to cancel the Senate's decision but the request was not satisfied.

On May 26, 2015, the parliament of Madagascar impeached the country's president, Hery Rajaonarimampianina. Parliamentarians accused the president of being unprofessional and violating the country's constitution. As many as 121 members of parliament, out of the 125 who were in attendance, voted for the resignation. On June 13, Madagascar's Constitutional Court rejected the parliament's demand for dismissing the president.