ACCOUNTABILITY FROM TWO PRESIDENTS - FRANCE
AND THE UNITED STATES: 2021 VERSIONS OF ACCOUNTABILITY.
BY
Patrick
Olufemi Adelusi PhD
John & James
Associates (Bilingual Policy Scientists)
London. United Kingdom
patrickadelusi@jjassociates.org.uk
http://www.olufemiadelusi.blogspot.co.uk/
www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-olufemi-adelusi-a2139a76
I-
ABSTRACT
When the January
6th 2021 rampage against the Capitol Building hosting the Congress,
Legislative arm of the United States took place under the watchful eyes of the
obviously lame duck President Donald Trump on his
way out, it shook the country and the whole world. That a Commander-in- Chief
President Donald Trump will encourage a domestic terrorist attack against his
country’s Legislative arm of government hosting his Vice President at that
point in time leaves everyone shocked. That the mental health of President
Donald Trump the US President was never questioned leaves more to be desired.
Some members of his Republican Party paid allegiance to him and his monumental
lie about winning an election which he lost by a landslide. The opposition
Democratic Party called for bipartisan demand for accountability from the
President. His party members doggedly refused to employ the main instrument for
demanding that accountability which is the instrument of impeachment. Their
argument being that President Donald Trump the US President was on his way out
of office. Accountability was the key thing involved here. On the other side of
the Atlantic, the former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) was
accused of corruption and influence peddling and sentenced to 3 years in
prison, two suspended, after being found guilty of attempting to bribe a judge.
A Paris court heard that he used a mobile phone and a false name to gather
confidential information from a judge. Here is a country dropping her
convention that the country’s chief executive is above the law. In this preliminary
study, these two cases are interesting to review. The underline factor is that
the accountability issue is coming on 2021. More intriguing, in the early
quarter of the year. To help our understanding, we are carrying out our tasks
along 4 sections. namely, Section one -Abstracts, Section two- Introduction,
Section three -Accountability from two Presidents: Cases of France and the US and
Section four- Conclusion.
II-
INTRODUCTION
Democracy’s major pillar
is the accountability of leaders to the electorate that elected them. Take away
accountability, you are left with dictatorship. Leaders that take decisions without
considering accountability. Another word for it is impunity. US President Trump
encouraged resurrection against the Federal Government of which he is the head
simply because he lost free, fair, and well-organized elections in a
landslide. There are sanctions in the statute book, the US constitution. Debates
were on; should a lame-duck President on his way out of the office, be
impeached with additional sanctions of the future inability of participating in
Political office? January 6, 2021storming of the Capitol Building at the behest
of Donald Trump qualified as an impeachable offense and gross misconduct under the
US Constitution.
This study examines two
old democracies facing the implementation of the accountability clause of their
democratic charter. France seems to have modified her age-old practices of
having their Presidents immune from prosecutions to after office loss of
immunity from prosecutions. Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy is
reportedly not to be the only former French President to have been charged to
court. That shows that the accountability clause is working well. There are
obviously no controversies about the process and the actual events. The other
interesting case study is that of former US President Donald Trump. He left
office on January 20, 2021. Charges brought against him were conducted within the
last few days to his departure and immediately as he left the office. This
situation gave rise to controversies over the appropriateness of the
accountability clause.
In this preliminary
study, these two cases are interesting to review. The underline factor is that
the accountability issue is coming in 2021. More intriguing, in the early
quarter of the year. To help our understanding, we are carrying out our tasks
along 4 sections. Namely, Section one -Abstracts, Section two- Introduction,
Section three -Accountability from two Presidents: Cases
of France and the US and Section four- Conclusion.
III-
ACCOUNTABILITY FROM TWO PRESIDENTS: CASES OF FRANCE
AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
France seems to have
modified her age-old practices of having their Presidents immune from
prosecutions to after office loss of immunity from prosecutions. Former French
President Nicholas Sarkozy is reportedly not to be the only former French
President to have been charged to court. That shows that the accountability
clause is working well. There are obviously no controversies about the process
and the actual events. The other interesting case study is that of former US
President Donald Trump. He left office on January 20, 2021. Charges brought against
him were conducted within the last few days to his departure and immediately as
he left the office. This situation gave rise to controversies over the
appropriateness of the accountability clause.
The US constitution made
provisions for the accountability of its President. A practical understanding
of these provisions relates to checking the Executive branch headed by the
President by the Congress. The House of Representatives kicked off the accountability
can with regards to President Donald Trump this January 2021. The lame-duck
President Donald Trump waiting for an end to his 4-year tenure on January 20,
2021, was accused of instigating the insurrection against the members of the
Congress. The Congress was holding a constitutional assignment on 2020
General President Elections with the Electoral College component of it. The
Senate is required under the constitution to formally ratify results of the
votes earned by both President Donald and his challenger Vice-President Joe
Biden. The ratification is a formality, as Vice President, Joe Biden Jnr. had
won more Electoral College votes than President Trump; 306 votes for Biden to
232 votes for Trump. While total general votes for Biden were 80,002,083 million
to Trump’s 73,872,609 million votes.
As the exercise for the
ratification of these votes by the Senate presided over by Vice President
Pence was in progress, hooligans, domestic terrorists stormed the Congressional
building referred to as the Capitol. Doors and windows were vandalized, offices
of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and other offices were turned
upside down. There were threats issued and, in the melee, about 5 persons
inclusive of police officers died. The lame-duck President Donald Trump was
caught on video broadcast shortly before the January 6, 2021 storming of the
Capitol building by the domestic terrorists later identified as Trump
supporters, making a speech like a rallying cry urging them to carry out the
‘abomination’. A Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces
‘commanding’ domestic terrorists to display terrorism against an important
institution of the government of the United States of America.
On record, the House of
Representatives impeached President Donald Trump as the first leg of the
Congressional accountability of the President. The second leg took place
shortly after the lame-duck President was eased off at the expiration of his
tenure. In the Senate where the second leg of the Congressional accountability
took place, the votes were 53 votes for impeachment to 47 votes against
impeachment. By US constitutional provisions, only a 2/3 majority can fully
impeach their President and ban him from any further future public office. The
implication of these results is that now-former President Donald Trump was
unsuccessfully impeached. The majority of the Republican Party Senators voted
against his impeachment.
IV-
CONCLUSION
Former one-term President
of France in the person of Nicholas Paul Stephane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa 66
years might have nursed an ambition to make a comeback as a Presidential
candidate again. This ambition disappeared on the first of March 2021 as he was
sentenced to three years in jail, he became the second former President of
France to suffer the same fate. The two of them were suspended for corruption.
Indeed, it has been reported as a legal landmark for post-war France. Another
former French President that was sentenced to jail too was Jacques Chirac in
2011. His offense was arranging bogus jobs at Paris City Hall for allies when
he was Paris mayor. The accountability of the French President is working. There
is no Political party opposing its course. Until the Trump Republican Party
appeared in the US, all Political Parties- Democratic and Republican alike have
always supported and embraced fully the provisions of the constitution on
accountability of the country’s President. The same cannot be said of 2021
exercise.
Finally, democracy has
two main pillars in its definition, free and fair choice of people by the
people for the people. Secondly, accountability by the elected to the electors.
The moment the accountability clause begins to be put under strain, the concept
and practices of democracy no longer hold sway in the country. The US and
France represented two different interpretations of the accountability of their
presidents during the year 2021.
