A historico-legal overview on the impeachment system under the United States and the United Kingdom constitutions and any relevance to Malta

Abstract

The process of impeachment is one which is central and essential to the functioning of a healthy and democratic legal system, the absence of which would guarantee office holders immunity both from prosecution and accountability as well as removal from the office which they hold. This dissertation will seek to explore the historical development of the notion of impeachment and its process under the Anglo Saxon legal system. Although impeachment covers all ‘public officials’, this dissertation will focus on how this affects those occupying the highest offices of the land in the USA and in the UK, namely presidents and prime ministers respectively. Following a chapter on the scientific Methodology to be used, it will start with a textual analysis of the relevant Articles under the United States Constitution and a legal analysis of these provisions, namely Article 1 Section 2, 4, 5, 6 ,7, Article 2 Sections 2 and 4 and other provisions which refer to, or may influence the interpretation or rules of procedure of impeachment both directly or indirectly from a legal standpoint. This section will also analyse what the framers of the United States Constitution had in mind when drafting the provisions relating to impeachment, mostly during the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention and Debates. The discussion will cover the legal background of the constitutional founding fathers/notable framers of the U.S constitution and their reasoning behind their justified and well-founded fears on the dangers of lack of accountability which public officers may manifest in the long run, as well as the risks of investing too much unchecked power in the various branches of government. This study will next compare the rules and procedure of impeachment in the United States and in the UK, illustrated by the first recorded impeachment in the UK in 1376 of William 4th Baron Latimer a close associate of Eduard III. Special emphasis in the analysis will be given to the phrase “High Crimes and Misdemeanours”, first used by the British Parliament in 1386 as well as the last instance which was the unsuccessful trial of Lord Melville in 1806. This study will also analyse the extent to which the Magna Carta may have planted the first seeds of the notion of impeachment and responsible government, which thereafter gave rise to its use and promulgation into modern constitutional provisions which stem from Anglo- Saxon roots. This will be followed by a chapter in which the historico-legal findings in these two chapters will be appraised and summarised. The next chapter, a brief analysis of the historico-legal context of the relevant articles relating to impeachment under the Constitution of Malta namely Articles 97 (2), 100 (4) and 48 (3) (b) will be undertaken. In the conclusion, the various parts will be brought together in a synthetic summary.