Both sweeping immunity and overzealous prosecutions of former leaders can undermine democracy. But such prosecutions pose different risks for older democracies like the US than in younger ones.
Judges can move with speed, but don’t always.
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Former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger has died, aged 100. His legacy, including his involvement in the Vietnam war, is long, complicated and divisive.
President Joe Biden and family after he was sworn in at the U.S. Capitol, January 20, 2021.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Peter Kastor, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Politics, age and gender combine to shape the understanding of presidents’ families – and the presidents themselves.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announces on Aug. 11, 2023, that he has appointed a special counsel to handle the investigations into Hunter Biden.
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Special counsels can help presidential administrations avoid the perception of bias, but they are not as independent as the independent counsels of the past.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump acknowledges a supporter at a campaign rally on Aug. 8, 2023, at a high school in New Hampshire.
(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
It’s the electorate, not the courts, that will decide Donald Trump’s fate in 2024. Many voters appear willing to give him a second chance — as Americans often do when it comes to former presidents
Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to cast a tiebreaking vote in the U.S. Senate.
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Kamala Harris is on track to be one of the most influential vice presidents in history. This says more about the Senate than the amount of power the vice president actually wields.
The New York Times resumed publication of its series of articles based on the Pentagon Papers in its July 1, 1971, edition, after it was given the green light by the Supreme Court.
AP Photo/Jim Wells
The New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers showed the paper was willing to jeopardize connections to other powerful institutions, including the government, to serve the public interest.
Elder statesman: Henry Kissinger addresses the 2023 Davos World Economic Forum via videolink.
EPA-EFE/Gian Ehrenzeller
With a federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, currently a presidential candidate, a legal scholar explores what the law says about the consequences of such an unprecedented act.
Approach with caution, advises a journalism scholar.
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Journalism has been fodder for politicians’ contempt for generations. A huge percentage of the public doesn’t trust the news media either. That mistrust isn’t a bad thing in a democracy.
South Africa’s governing ANC has continued the anti-cannabis repression inherited from apartheid.
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A 1971 law, and the parallel growth of an illegal economy, shaped South Africa’s unique cannabis landscape.
A group of voters lining up outside the polling station, a small Sugar Shack store, on May 3, 1966, in Peachtree, Ala., after the Voting Rights Act was passed the previous year.
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