WImpeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements.
WA referendum on impeaching President Traian Băsescu was held in Romania on 29 July 2012. The referendum was required after Parliament voted in favour of impeaching Băsescu on 6 July, and had to take place within a month. It was the second referendum on impeaching Băsescu, the first having been held in May 2007, in which 74% of voters chose to keep him in office. Băsescu was later narrowly re-elected in 2009.
WShirani Bandaranayake, the 43rd Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, was impeached by Parliament and then removed from office by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in January 2013. Bandaranayake was accused of a number of charges including financial impropriety and interfering in legal cases, all of which she has denied. The impeachment followed a series of rulings against the government by the Supreme Court, including one against a bill proposed by Minister Basil Rajapaksa, President Rajapaksa's brother. Bandaranayake was replaced as chief justice by former Attorney General Mohan Peiris. Peiris is considered to be an ally of President Rajapaksa and his appointment is seen by critics as further consolidation of power by the president and his family. Bandaranayake refused to recognise the impeachment and lawyers groups refused to work with the new chief justice. Bandaranayake's controversial impeachment drew much criticism and concern from within and outside of Sri Lanka. On 28 January 2015 she was reinstated and retired on 29 January, the next day.
WThe impeachment of Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of Bengal, was attempted between 1787 and 1795 in the Parliament of Great Britain. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta, particularly relating to mismanagement and personal corruption. The impeachment prosecution was led by Edmund Burke and became a wider debate about the role of the East India Company and the expanding empire in India. According to historian Mithi Mukherjee, the trial became the site of a debate between two radically opposed visions of empire—one represented by Hastings, based on ideas of absolute power and conquest in pursuit of the exclusive national interests of the colonizer, versus one represented by Burke, of sovereignty based on a recognition of the rights of the colonized.
WThe Impeachment of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford was a legal process in the Kingdom of Great Britain when the former First Minister Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford was impeached and sent to the Tower of London in 1715. Harley was accused of a number of crimes including high treason for his time in office, with charges particularly focusing on his role in the 1713 Peace of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession.
WThe Romanian presidential impeachment referendum of 2007 was conducted in order to determine whether the president of Romania Traian Băsescu should be forced to step down.
WImpeachment is a process in which the Parliament of the United Kingdom may prosecute and try individuals, normally holders of public office, for high treason or other crimes and misdemeanours. First used to try William Latimer, 4th Baron Latimer during the English Good Parliament of 1376, it was a rare mechanism whereby Parliament was able to arrest and depose ministers of the Crown. The last impeachment was that of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville in 1806; since then, other forms of democratic scrutiny have been favoured and the process has been considered as an obsolete—but still extant—power of Parliament.