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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Edit: By “overthrow” I mean an actual attempt to topple the government, not wandering around aimlessly in a building for 4 hours stealing furniture.

If you actually oppose power you would almost certainly be FBI’d long before you could ever get to a position where you could conceivably stage a coup.

Being barred from election is a very quaint punishment for leading a failed coup.

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[-] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago

Our democratic banning of an opposition leader from eligibility vs their antidemocratic banning of an opposition leader from eligibility

[-] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

Funny because US presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution, have always had it, but when other countries set their laws up the same way it's dystopian.

[-] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

Ah but have you considered when the US does it, it’s democratic?

[-] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

In my country, the constitution explicitly makes the monarch immune from any kind of criminal prosecution whatsoever. A still-valid part of the 17th century constitution for the then absolute monarchy excempts "princes of the blood" from being prosecuted before any court but the monarch personally, leading to such absurdities as the current heir apparent having received speeding tickets from his mom, the queen.

As for the actual day to day rulers, the elected politicians and government ministers, they are immune to criminal prosecution unless a majority in parliament decides to allow the prosecution. If government ministers are too be made responsible for anything they do as ministers, this has to happen before a special court of impeachment staffed by political appointees and charges can only be raised by a majority in parliament. As a result, only two ministers has been brought to justice on this side of WWII. Instead, an absurd system of "not even slaps on the wrist" are used to "punish" crimes committed in office. This "punishment" is called a "nose" and literally consists of nothing more than a parliamentary committee passing a resolution to "raise critique" of a minister. The media treats this parish of accountability as big as really big and important news.

But yeah, the rulers of BadCountry™ are not accountable before the law and I should be very concerned about this.

[-] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago

nah we don't need to support this one. no one should have the power to give themselves legal immunity.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago

While I agree with you that there is no need to support Lukashenko uncritically, the crucial context that both you and the outraged west are missing that such immunities are pretty much standard in in most western and liberal countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_immunity#Immunity_of_government_leaders

[-] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

parliamentary immunity being a bad idea that western nations do doesn't mean everybody else should do it too. It just means the critique shouldn't come from the state department.

i'd also be very surprised if they didn't already have a basic version of it, but i'm not a belarussian lawyer

[-] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

It means that being selectively outraged that he's doing it is pointless. Why only get worked up over a systemic problem as soon as it's done by enemies of the western NATO aligned consensus?

[-] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

i'm against it here too, but it only usually comes up when we're talking about holding police accountable within the liberal system.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Political leaders are not police officers

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago
[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I think political leaders and police officers are very distinct things and bad analogies

[-] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

Yeah but what he’s doing here doesn’t seem any more unique than existing laws in any country.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

the lifelong parliament seat is kinda different and pretty wack

[-] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

a bit too pinochety

[-] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Still, it is not that different from British life peers or Italian senators for life, institutions that are never covered in this way by the media outlets who are now clutching their pearls over Lukashenko.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Life peers have the closest thing to no political power at all. The Lord's only purpose these days is to delay legislation and force review of bills.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

i simply take it for granted that no state is worthy of support. Having done so, I can proceed to adequately criticize the propaganda my own government feeds me about other governments.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

in the civilized west we simply have the current porky-in-chief pardon the previous porky-in-chief

[-] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Jan. 6th fascists barely prosecuted...

[-] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

lukashenko-tired No one is immune to ~~propaganda~~ the law

[-] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)
[-] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

no, in the US we don't need to do this because the next guy just says "we tortured some folks" and we move on.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Inventing a computer virus that zaps liberals every time they use the word "authoritarian". meow-knife-trans

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Aren't all world leaders essentially barred from criminal prosecution while sitting? Does this extend to after the term of a Belarus leader at all?

this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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