The Rules and Grounds for Impeachments - Research Paper Example

The Rules and Grounds for Impeachments Impeachment basically means the procedure by which “the President, Vice President, and any other civil officers including members of the judiciary, can be removed from their respective offices if found guilty of treason, bribery, corruption, misdemeanors or any other high crimes. The grounds of impeachment are all most same in all the countries with a trivial disparity like in Philippine Constitution the grounds for impeachment include bribery, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust, and culpable violation of the Constitution whereas in US constitution the grounds are treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Nevertheless what precisely constitutes "high crimes and misdemeanors" is not defined and left to interpretation based on the circumstances and facts of the case. On the contrary treason, bribery and other forms of corruption are very serious offenses against the state, and all most everybody would agree that such offenses do constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors". In the U.S. the president, vice president, and other federal officers, including judges, may be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. Similarly in India such power lies with the Parliament and with the members of “majlis’ in Iran. Scanning through history shows us that time and again in various countries such impeachment proceedings against presidents, judges etc have taken place like in 1677 the House of Commons impeached the King's chief minister, the Earl of Danby, for negotiating a treaty with the King of France, Warren Hastings was impeached 1786 arising from alleged misgovernment in India and Lord Melville was impeached 1806 for corruption in the use of public funds. Some of the more recent and he highly controversial amongst all times were the impeachment of Chief Justice Samuel Chase, impeachments of President Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and President Bill Clinton. Impeachment once prevailed in England as an important mechanism to check abusive, high‐ranking ministers, but in the United States it has mainly become a device to remove corrupt lower federal court judges. The rules and grounds for impeachments are generally incorporated in the country’s constitution which may be substantiated with other statutes. Rules laid down during any subsequent impeachment might also be taken of Precedential value. In USA Generally the senators look into the rules of evidence used in federal courts, common law principles and the precedents of past impeachment trials for guidance. IMPORTANCE OF EVIDENCE IN IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS The importance of evidence, in the process of impeachment, lies in the fact that the conviction of a person lies strictly on the quantity and quality of evidences produced. Only after there is enough evidence for a charge, an article of impeachment would be framed against that charge, which is further subject to majority votes, without which such a charge cannot be used for the conviction in the impeachment process. The impeached officials may appear on their own behalf or through some legal counsel who would be appointed to represent them. Their counsel can question witnesses and present evidence on behalf of the official. At the end of the trial, the Senate votes separately on each article of impeachment. Two-thirds of the senators present are necessary to convict and remove a person from office. The rules of evidence as used by the impeachment committee gains potentially more gravity than ordinary law suits due to the reason that here such rules of evidence which are not merely a shield against potentially prejudicial or unreliable material but an extreme powerful tool pointing towards public figures. The members of the committee have the discretionary power to decide which evidence to be given more weightage and which meets such standards making the impeachment unavoidable. One of the major problem which is faced in most impeachment proceeding is collection of evidence because in such position a person can validly refuse to produce evidence in the garb of national security like president Nixon denied handing over the tapes, which were vital evidences against him under the pretext that such tapes contain conversations held in the oval office and thus contain information which cannot be released for national security. Impeachment is a process applicable to such high level offices where routine methods of investigation cannot follow and most of the times, either the evidences are destroyed or witnesses allured to falsely testify. Many times it has also happened that even after the crime is proved the person escapes impeachment due to lack of majority like Justice Ramaswami of India escaped impeached even though charges against him were proved and majority voted for his impeachment but such majority was not the required two third. In most of the cases of impeachment the burden of proof isn’t definite and lies at the discretion of the individual senator and he decides whether the charges have been proved beyond the reasonable doubt or not. During the 1986 trial of Judge Claiborne, the Senate rejected his motion that the House managers had to prove his guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt". In the absence of any definition of this “beyond the reasonable doubt”, it can be argued that the standard should be raised to a greater heights in cases of impeachment not only because they are not just any paltry case but also to assures the public that this grave decision has been made with greatest care. This would also reassure the prominent political figures that they are being protected by the law against the “framed charges”, fabricated to pull them down in the eyes of the public, by the powerful enemies from the opposition whom they have beaten. Professor Charles L. Black Jr. said: "Removal by conviction on impeachment is a stunning penalty, the ruin of a life. Even more important it unseats the person the people have deliberately chosen for the office.” However the lenient interpretation of the provision of burden of proof says that any clear and convincing evidence which can convince a common man of prudence and diligence too can be used to prove a charge beyond reasonable doubts. However it’s humbly submitted that this liberal construction is not a very cautious idea in case of impeachment of presidents and prominent political figures because it is presumed that only a man of extraordinary prudence will be selected to govern the “common man of ordinary prudence” and to prove his guilt the evidences should be beyond extra reasonable doubt. Though, we cannot all together rule out the fact that raising standers for conviction and impeachment might make conviction difficult and defeat the whole purpose of protecting the country from an individual unfit to hold public office. As suggested by Black “the high criminal standard of proof could mean, in practice, that a man would remain president, whom every member of the Senate believed to be guilty of corruption, just because his guilt was not shown 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' In 1980’s two important question rose in US impeachment trials as to whether a uniform standard of proof should be followed in such trials and if so then burden of proof should lie on which side. It was submitted that setting such standard would allow both the side to present their cases at the best and allow greater consistency. The first argument might say that such a defined set of evidences would apprehend the accused of the kinds of evidences and proofs to be expected in the trial. What’s more, some experts have even gone to the extent of saying that if the rules of evidences are defined stringently then there are chances that these high level crimes might be performed in a different way so as to leave only those evidences at hand which would be inadmissible as per such required definition. The standard of the proofs are of greater importance in impeachment proceedings because they involve not “any” individual, but the representative of the entire nation. Here the standard of proof must be higher than what they are in domestic trails in domestic courts. The difference in the procedure of impeachment of Pickering and Clinton triggered off this concept of “setting up of uniform rules”. Those who oppose this system of “set rules” argue that the impeachment proceedings do not have the same needs as the normal criminal and civil trials. Also they say that even if such prescribed set of evidentiary rules are set up they would not be binding on the individual conducting the impeachment proceeding. The different individual would have their own discretion as to the set of evidence and standard of proof admissible and possibly will exercise his discretionary power to go beyond them in the pursuance of justice equity and good conscience. We will discuss in detail certain famous and politically motivated impeachment proceeding now and analyse how much evidences count over political pressures. CASE STUDIES 1. IMPEACHMENT OF JOHN PICKERING John Pickering was the federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. His impeachment was initiated by one of the most radical republican named Randolph who contended that the Justice Chase's conduct calls for a notice and that it’s his duty to investigate on the charges alleged. He further asked the House to appoint a committee for inquiry into the matter. Thus began the impeachment trial of Judge Pickering under the charges of drunkenness, unlawful rulings leading to criminal misconduct and indulging in misdemeanors. On the day of his appearance before the court, John Pickering's name was called three times without any answer. Then a petition was submitted to the Senate by Vice-President Burr from the son of the accused, Jacob Pickering alleging the judge to be insane and therefore incapable of any sleaze judgment. The petition prayed to the court for postponement of the trial that so that the accused counsel may have time to collect evidences to show that the judge was wholly unbalanced, incapable of transacting any kind of business which required the exercise of reason during the period when the alleged crimes were committed and two years before as well as ever since. Robert G. Harper requested the court to be allowed to appear on behalf of Pickering but not as a counsel for him, who being insane could not appoint him to that capacity but as his agent and after a lot of speculation Harper’s request was entertained. Thereafter Harper put forth evidences which including various documents and testimonies which were decisive in regard to the insanity of Pickering. After Harper had put in his evidence and retired, the House managers,supplied evidences in the form of documents and testimonies proving that Pickering was indeed a habitual drunkard and is liable for misbehavior. The Senate found itself face to face with a twofold bizarre issue. As according to Harper, Pickering was insane and evidences fortified the claim and on the other hand the house managers have proved that charges against Pickering are true. Acquittal of Pickering would probably proclaim that the people could not protect themselves from misbehavior in their judicial servants and his conviction would violate the principle of natural justice that an insane man, who does not understand the nature of his work, is not responsible for the same and not amenable to any earthly tribunal. The senate worked out this confusion by reminding that the Constitution made judges' tenure of office dependent on their good behavior and provided no other means than that of impeachment for their removal and if insanity or any other misfortune is made a bar to the impeachment, then it might be misused making the people were powerless to protect themselves. Therefore the motion continued and by a vote of nineteen to seven Judge Pickering was declared "guilty as charged" in the articles of impeachment; and by a vote of twenty to six the Senate resolved that he ought to be removed from office. Pickering’s impeachment was followed all most immediately by the impeachment proceeding of Justice Samuel Chase. This is another very interesting case which shows how discretion of the senate wins over the evidences against the person impeached. 2. JUSTICE SAMUEL CHASE’S IMPEACHMENT After Pickering’s removal in 1803, the House began impeachment proceedings against Associate Justice Samuel Chase. in the election of 1800 John Adams was defeated by Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party took control of both houses of Congress. Chase who had always been a Democratic-Republicans resistor and a strong partisan of John Adams, could not help but agitate. Jefferson’s election displeased him immensely, so he began to openly assail the president and his policies and went to the extent of condemning the Democratic-Republicans from the bench. [Chase suggested to the grand jurors that "the country was headed down the road to “mobocracy”, the worst of all popular governments" and that, if left in power, Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans would eliminate "all security for property, and personal liberty." The "modern doctrine … that all men in a state of society are entitled to equal liberty and equal rights," Chase warned, will bring "mighty mischief upon us." Finally, Chase said that congressional Democratic-Republicans had gravely compromised the independence of the judiciary by repealing the Judiciary Act of 1801, which lame-duck Federalist lawmakers had passed to create extra federal judgeships for President Adams to fill]1. Jefferson on learning about Chase's conduct, sought to take action against him and soon enough the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Chase by a 73 to 32 margin, naming John Randolph, a cousin of Jefferson and the man behind the impeachment of judge Pickering, to head the House Managers responsible for prosecuting Chase. There were all together three charges framed against chase. The first being his remarks before the Baltimore grand jury against the democratic republicans, the second from his conduct in the trial of John Fries charged for treason and the last over his conduct in the trial of James Callender who was charged of sedition and these three charges together amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Thus he was tried for violation of Article II, Section 4 of the U.S Constitution which provides that the federal judges "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Over the testimony of more than 50 witnesses were presented as evidence in Chase’s case and out of them, the Callender’s trial being the most serious of all. Callender had published a book accusing John Adams and was charged under the provisions of the Sedition Act which made it a crime to speak or write in such a way as to bring the president or Congress "into contempt or disrepute. Several evidences that Chase had prejudged the Callender case was presented during the impeachment proceedings including a testimony declaring that Chase had threatened to present the offending passages of the book to the grand jury himself and obtain an indictment against the defendant and that he failed to exclude a juror from sitting on the jury, even though the juror had formed an unfavorable opinion about Callender. Chase admitted threatening but denied carrying out the same. He argued that the threat by itself did not constitute a high crime or misdemeanor. However Chase was acquitted of all charges on the grounds that the political opinion of a judge doesn’t come into the purview of high crimes, misdemeanors or anything suitable to impeachment and two-thirds of the Senate, which was necessary for conviction was not obtained. 3. JUSTICE RAMASWAMI’S IMPEACHMENT Justice Ramaswami was the chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court in India and was later elevated as Supreme Court judge. He was impeached during the tenure of him being the chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court. The committee leveled 14 charges against Justice Ramaswami ranging from willful and gross misuse of office, willful and persistent failure or negligence in discharge of duties, habitual extravagance at the cost of public exchequer, moral turpitude, using public funds for private purpose in diverse ways and bringing the high judicial office into disrepute. Documents received from various sources confirmed that he unauthorisedly purchased from favored dealers, items of furniture, furnishings and other articles, used official cars for his private purpose from the public funds and money received as bribe. He also got petrol charges in excess of what he was entitled to and got the same reimbursed from the public funds. He was also alleged to have directed the principal Secretary to make ten trips by air from Chandigarh to Delhi, Delhi to Madras, and back, involving an expenditure of RS.21000 made unlawfully. Another very serious charge against him was the creation of a forward group including officers from the High Court to help Justice Ramaswami carry out various unauthorized acts in lieu of promotions promised to those officers by way of reward. He was also accused of not adhering to the doctrine of precedent and supposedly allowed a divorce against precedent declared by Supreme Court in an earlier case and of doing gross injustice in the face of law. Another charge against him was that while serving in a High Court he became the member of the Supreme Court Cooperative Society and had himself allotted a flat in Delhi which he was not entitled to as he was not a resident of Delhi. A notice was issued to Justice Ramaswami ordering him to appear before the Committee and produce the documents and witnesses relied upon by him. Justice Ramaswamy in turn questioned the validity of the committee constituted against him, the authority of the Speaker to constitute such Committee and further leveled various allegations against the individual members of the Committee. He repeatedly used the words "in the event I choose to submit to the jurisdiction of the Committee" which implied clearly his open disregard towards the committee and its jurisdiction. This was strictly against Article 124(5) of the Indian Constitution which has entrusted the task of inquiring into the conduct of the judge to the Committee appointed by the Speaker and it was the duty of Justice Ramaswami by virtue of his taking the oath to uphold the Constitution. In the light of evidences forwarded in form of testimonies of witnesses, audit reports etc. Justice Ramaswami was found guilty of 11 charges out of the 14 charges. Thus the Speaker placed the impeachment motion before the House on May 10, 1993. Even before the motion was taken up, a section of Congress MPs from Tamil Nadu had issued a statement calling upon the leadership to defeat the motion. The Constitution of India requires a motion for the removal of a judge to be carried by a special majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of each House present and voting and an absolute majority of its total membership. Even though majority of votes casted in this case was for the impeachment, but such majority was not the two third and thus the impeachment was defeated. 4. PRESIDENT CLINTON’S IMPEACHMENT: “Travelgate” was the first major Clinton related scandal." In May 1993, seven long-time employees in the office were abruptly fired and replaced with friends of the Clintons from Arkansas. Next, in July Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel, and life-long friend of the President, was found shot dead in a park just outside Washington from an apparent suicide. Huge controversy raked up when it was revealed that federal investigators had been denied access to Foster's White House office, but that Clinton aides had entered the office within hours of Foster's death. Speculation arose in the media that documents related to the Whitewater Development Corporation might have been removed. Whitewater Development Corporation came into existence in 1978 when Bill and Hillary Clinton along with their two Arkansas acquaintances, James and Susan McDougal, borrowed $203,000 to purchase 220 acres of riverfront land in Arkansas' Ozark Mountains, to building vacation houses. In 1982, James McDougal purchased a small savings and loan in Little Rock and named it the Madison Guaranty which held a fund-raising event to help eliminate Governor Bill Clinton's campaign debt. Federal investigators later alleged that some of the funds had been improperly withdrawn from depositors' funds. By 1989 Madison Guaranty collapsed due to a number of failed loans, and was shut down by the federal government. In 1992, the Federal Resolution Trust Corporation, during its investigation into the causes of its failure, named both Bill and Hillary Clinton as "potential beneficiaries" of alleged illegal activities at Madison Guaranty. A referral was then sent to the U.S. Justice Department. By the summer of 1994, the House and Senate Banking committees both began hearings concerning Whitewater and eventually called 29 Clinton administration officials to testify. Amid all of the media attention paid to the Starr investigation and the Whitewater hearings, new allegations cropped up against Clinton. a young woman named Paula C. Jones appeared at a Washington gathering of conservative activists and alleged that, in 1991, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton had sexually harassed her and she filed a civil lawsuit against the President in federal district court in Arkansas, seeking $700,000 in damages along with a personal apology from Clinton. Incredibly, it was at this time, that President Clinton began an illicit sexual affair with a 22-year-old White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky confided the intimate details of her relationship with the President to her friend Tripp who secretly tape-recorded the same and which were later used as evidence. Starr's investigators found that it was Clinton's close friend Vernon Jordan who had found Monica a lawyer to help her swear out an affidavit in the Jones case in which she allegedly denied having a sexual relationship or being given any employed with his aid2. Starr, with the permission from the U.S. Justice Department expanded his Whitewater probe to investigate Jordan's involvement in aiding Lewinsky, the truth of her affidavit and whether Jordan and Clinton had encouraged Lewinsky to lie. What no one noticed was the silent shifting of the focus from the Whitewater prod to the personal conduct of the President. On the other hand, President Clinton, in compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s order, on being interrogated by Jones’s lawyers, denied under oath having sexual relations with Lewinsky, according to the definition provided by Jones's lawyers. Clinton also said he could not recall ever being alone with her in the White House3. These denials by presidents were later used as the basis of an article of impeachment. Meanwhile U.S. District court dismissed the Paula Jones sexual harassment proceedings without a trial on the grounds that stating that such behavior in the hotel room may have been "boorish and offensive," but did not meet the standard of sexual harassment under federal law. In the year 1998 Monica Lewinsky handed over a blue dress to Starr investigators that contained a stain from a sexual encounter with the President. The FBI obtained a blood sample from the President which matched his DNA with that of the stain in the dress and thus an absolute evidence of the sexual encounter was established. Lewinsky was thereafter questioned extensively before Starr's federal grand jury and revealed shockingly intimate details. Ken Starr cited 11 impeachable offenses against the President supported by his 453-page report and 36 boxes of evidences including the sworn testimonies of Clinton and Monica, grand jury transcripts, depositions, statements, affidavits, along with video and audio tapes and other sexually explicit evidence against him like a photograph of her stained blue dress and her "Dear Handsome" letters to Clinton. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee considered a resolution for a formal impeachment inquisition. The House Judiciary Committee then began the proceedings. Ken Starr himself appeared as a witness accusing Clinton of repeatedly engaging in a deliberately deceptive conduct under oath regarding his affair with Lewinsky. The Democrats, in defence of Clinton took the ground that the charges against Clinton did not ascend to the level of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" rather they were more of morally reprehensible. The problem laid in the fact that under U.S. Constitution “high Crimes and Misdemeanors" is a ground for impeachment but it is not specifically defined. To support their argument they produced an array of scholars whose interpretation could be counted of evidential value. The Judiciary Committee voted accusing Clinton of committing perjury before Starr's grand jury and in the Jones case, causing obstruction of justice in the Jones case and making false statements in his answers to the 81 written questions submitted to Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde. These four articles of accusations were then forwarded to the full House of Representatives for consideration. Consequently President Clinton's impeachment trial began on Thursday, January 7, 1999. House prosecutors accused Clinton of "willful, premeditated and intentional corruption of the nation's system of justice through perjury and obstruction of justice” which was opposed by Clinton's lawyers on the grounds that the allegations do not meet the constitutional standard to remove the President from office as they are not high crimes or misdemeanors." The Senate further voted in favor of seeking videotaped depositions from Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan, and Sidney Blumenthal. Monica Lewinsky was interrogated regarding her job in New York and the false affidavit in the Jones case. On Friday, February 12, eyes of the entire world were turned on inside the chamber and senators gathered in open session for the final decision. On Article 1, the charge of perjury, 55 senators, including 10 Republicans and all 45 Democrats voted not guilty. On Article 3, obstruction of justice, the Senate split evenly, 50 for and 50 against the President. Therefore in the absence of two-thirds majority, the President was thus acquitted. 5. PRESIDENT NIXON’S IMPEACHMENT This legendary incident marked its beginning on the night of June 17, 1972, when a break-in occurred in the Democratic National Committee offices inside the Watergate office complex in Washington. However the five burglars were spotted by the watchman and arrested at the scene by police. Investigations made the shocking revelation that the burglars were sent by the supporters of President Nixon. President Nixon denied the same saying that no one from the White House staff or administration could be involved in this third-rate burglary attempt. Two young reporters from the Washington Post, then began a dogged pursuit of the facts surrounding the break-in. they revealed that one of the Watergate burglars was a retired CIA employee and also the security coordinator for Nixon's re-election committee and other was Attorney General John Mitchell who had controlled a secret fund which financed political spying and dirty tricks targeting Democratic presidential candidates. Nevertheless, the U.S. Senate established a Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, to investigate the Watergate scandal and other allegations of political spying related to Nixon's re-election. President Nixon faced the direst quandaries when James W. McCord, one of the five burglars convicted after the Watergate break-in, informed U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica that he was being pressured to remain silent. The second blow came in the form of FBI Director’s resignation who admitted before quitting the office, to have destroyed the Watergate evidences under the pressure from Nixon aides. The troubles further mounted as the former Presidential Counsel John Dean testified that Nixon had personally paid the hush up money to the five burglars and two other operatives involved in the Watergate scandal. Another Nixon assistant revealed that all most all the conversations had been recorded by the hidden microphones installed in the oval office. The tapes thus became the centre of attraction. This resulted in the "Saturday Night Massacre" in which Nixon attempt to fire Archibald Cox was successful. The events of the "Saturday Night Massacre" were covered live by reporters on network television and sent a political tremor throughout America leading to immediate calls for impeachment. The impeachment proceedings started Ten days later and the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Peter Rodino, started its preliminary investigation. Initially Nixon resisted handing over the tapes harping on the fact that such tapes contain important political secrets not legible to be revealed in public for the heck of country’s security but later he succumbed to public outrage and reluctantly agreed to hand over some of the tapes. However, the White House revealed that the tapes were being tampered with and definitely certain important conversations were deleted based on the fact that two of the tapes no longer existed and one had an 18 minute blank gap. All these while Nixon maintained his innocence, stating, ["... in all of my years in public life I have never obstructed justice...People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."]4. Even though Nixon did not release the 42 tapes he was compelled to release the transcripts of 20 tapes. The transcripts caused a national sensation as they revealed Nixon frequently discussing Watergate including the raising of "hush money" to keep the burglars quiet. The House Judiciary Committee framed three articles of impeachment against Nixon charging him with obstruction of justice by making false and fabricated statements, contempt of Congress and abuse of power by violating his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. The long sought after audio tapes provided very strong evidence against the president and proved the fact that he indeed had ordered to halt the FBI investigation regarding Watergate break-in. This resulted into a complete collapse of support for Nixon in Congress. On Friday, August 9, Nixon resigned the presidency, after being informed that his impeachment and conviction is otherwise is inevitable and avoided the likely prospect of losing the impeachment vote in the full House and a subsequent trial in the Senate. He thus became the only U.S. President ever to resign. Vice President Gerald R. Ford succeeded him. ANALYSIS After studying the above mentioned cases we can see that in most of the cases impeachment was defeated due to lack of votes, not due to inadequacy of evidences. Evidences were always there, but what was more important that using those evidences one had to prove that such actions lead to such crimes, misuse of office, misdemeanors, corruption etc which can be a valid ground of impeachment. This can be very validly proved from the impeachment case of Justice Chase. While Chase's judicial behavior was improper, the eventual impeachment proceedings brought against him were also highly politicized. Chase was no doubt a belligerent, grumpy, aggressive, overbearing man and emerged as an extreme Federalist partisan who vigorously enforced the Sedition Acts which was well proved beyond uncertainties, yet the very trial shows that more than the mentioned reasons, he was called for impeachment due to his anti "Jefferson” attitude. However he finally could not be impeached on a very rational ground declaring that a person should not be impeached and removed from office because of his political opinions. But its most humbly submitted that when a person is sitting in the chair of justice vowing to deliver the same without any prejudice and partiality and the same person is intolerant and bigoted to the extent that he is actually prejudicing an entire trial, doesn’t this amount to a gross violation to his oath, chair and duty. Chase had no doubt violated the Article 3, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution which imposes on the Judges of both of the supreme and inferior Courts to maintain a good behaviour while holding their Offices. Those who argue that the grounds for impeachment should be either criminal or abuse of office rather than partisan, it would be very convenient to remind them that being a partisan actually prejudices the duty of delivering justice and thus there is an element of not only misusing of office but a gross miscarriage of duty. Also in the case of impeachment of Justice Ramaswami, Kapil Sibal the Counsel for the judge, made a six-hour presentation, in which he sought to ridicule the motion for the removal of a judge “for purchases of pieces of carpet or a few suitcases”. It is most humble submitted that when a person is attributed to such an prestige where public trust and faith is involved, the question is off betraying of such trust and not few suitcases of wealth. This is how evidences are tended to divert in the wrong direction and an attempt is made to ease the severity of the charges. Also we cannot help but speculate over the fact that ultimately Clinton’s impeachment articles were all related to Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and the “Travelgate matter” which marked the beginning of the same was completely lost. Starr's investigation eventually veered away from Whitewater scandal and delved deeply into the personal conduct of President Clinton, ultimately leading to his impeachment for events totally unrelated to Whitewater. Such a thing was not deliberate or it was a mere shift of focus, or it was overlooked doesn’t ring true to one’s mind. However care should be taken to keep a person’s personal life and professional capacity separate. Impeachment motions should not be moved if a person’s personal conduct is flawed but rather if he miscarries his duty and indulges in anything which is prejudicial to the country’s monitoring. Under the lights of the cases studied once again a question raises its head that “does a public figure have no right to privacy”? In Clinton’s case, his sexual encounter with Monica was with her consent and can this be a justified ground for his impeachment? The House Judiciary Committee rejected articles of impeachment against President Nixon for the secret bombings in Cambodia, which were viewed as being within the executive prerogative as him being the commander in chief, and personal income tax irregularities, which were viewed to be too personal to call for impeachment. CONCLUSION Therefore we ascertained that politics is a game which overshadows the eminence and standing of evidence. These are the cases were conviction just cannot be done even if there are abundance of evidence against the accused and the crime is proved beyond reasonable doubts. The constitutions of most of the countries have given a very profound protection to these high level public office holders and we saw that this protection has made impeachment all most impossible, even in the cases were the indictments have been attested. This trial of impeachments have been politically coloured and are very likely to be determined by the person’s political support system. If we consider the plea that singular impeacher views the evidences in impeachment case differently and might put forth their individual interpretation then what explains Pickering’s impeachment and Chase’s acquittal? Can it be denied in the light of the cases discussed that the final votes in most of the impeachment cases turn out to be surprisingly partisan in nature? Demand is not being made to take the evidences in the manner as they are taken in some ordinary cases, but what is required is that in these cases when miscarriage of the duty related to the offence is proved then the same should be taken into notice. To answer all these questions, what is needed is a through modification of impeachment laws with special consideration to the grounds of impeachment, evidences admissible and standard of such evidential values in proving ‘beyond reasonable doubts”. Thus we see that there is a pressing need to bring forth some changes in the laws of impeachment especially some of the terms are needed to be defined and clarified like grounds of impeachment, the quality of evidences, the standard as to what constitutes “beyond reasonable doubt” and most importantly we need to determine the question that is it fair and healthy for the country to acquit a person even after charges against him has been proved, just because there was not the so called required majority. Let us prevent the procedure of impeachment from taking the political colour and sidetracking from its original motto of “a public office in held by virtue of trust and honesty”. 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