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Personally, I believe that in a democracy, courts shouldn’t have the power to disqualify individuals from running for office. That’s just my opinion, though, an

by tlogan 2y ago

Personally, I believe that in a democracy, courts shouldn’t have the power to disqualify individuals from running for office. That’s just my opinion, though, and I’m not familiar with the situation in France. Separately, here in the U.S., I take issue with the fact that ex-felons are denied the right to vote. I believe we should push for a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to vote for every U.S. citizen—regardless of their criminal record or other issues.

eclecticfrank 2y ago
The temporary loss of the right to stand for election is a common punishment in France when politicians are convicted of corruption and breach of trust.
- pc86 2y ago
  I don't think anyone is questioning whether it's legal, simply whether it's right or ideologically consistent with people who claim to be pro-democracy.
voytec 2y ago
> Separately, here in the U.S., I take issue with the fact that ex-felons are denied the right to vote. You have a _CURRENT_ felon serving as POTUS.
- machomaster 2y ago
  Strawman. "right to vote" != "right to be elected"
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Good thing Florida exempted Trump from their "convicted felons can't vote" laws, too, huh? Oh, it's Trump, they said, well, yes, he has been convicted, but because a sentence has not been imposed or completed he's akshualllly not reallly a felon... yet. All the inmates in Florida prisons whose sentences have not been completed were very surprised to learn they were still eligible to vote. Except, no, this is just for Trump.
    - darthrupert 2y ago
      We all know that American democracy is a sad broken joke, but this piece of news is about France, which seems to have a functioning one.
petre 2y ago
That's how democracy works in Europe: the courts are part of the checks and ballances, politicians have to be transparent about campaign financing so that we hopefully don't get Uncle Adolph running the show again, needing Allied intervention again and bombs dropped on innocent people and beer factories. Le Pen's case is similar to Sarkozy takng a briefcase of cash from Gaddafi to finance hus campaign (and then waging war agsinst him) but it's more nuanced, because instead she used EU funds when Putin's funding dried up due to the need to finance his war. So basically she should probably be in the same place that Sarkozy is now or wherever the court will decide based on evidence.
jltsiren 2y ago
Do you believe that non-citizens should be allowed to run for any office? Or that citizens living outside a state/district should be allowed to represent that state/distict? If not, courts and/or election officials must have the power to disqualify individuals. As long as there are any legal requirements for a candidate, someone must make the final decision on whether a potential candidate fulfills the requirements.
mmooss 2y ago
There is separation of powers: The legislature made the law, the executive enforces it, the courts interpet it. The legislature is more responsible than the courts, IMHO. The real responsible person is Marine Le Pen: Don't commit crimes and you won't have these problems.
theshrike79 2y ago
Ex-felons should be allowed to vote. Felons shouldn't be eligible for political positions though.
GTP 2y ago
We should look at the whole legal framework, maybe it's part of the check and balances between the executive, legislative and judicial powers.
beernet 2y ago
>> courts shouldn’t have the power to disqualify individuals from running for office. Why would you want that? Didn't history teach us better? >> Separately, here in the U.S., I take issue with the fact that ex-felons are denied the right to vote Well, ex-felons can become Potus, so that's that.
- noitpmeder 2y ago
  >> Why would you want that? Didn't history teach us better? Once you give the courts the power to disqualify candidates you open the door to massive potential for political witch hunts with the express goal of disqualifying the opposition. Since the executive branch effectively controls the justice department, this is a pretty scary thought.
  - jmague 2y ago
    At least in France, the courts are independent of the executive.
    - noitpmeder 2y ago
      Thanks for this context! Pretty pivotal piece of info.
      - pjc50 2y ago
        If a court isn't independent of the executive, something is very seriously wrong (see Poland)
        noitpmeder 2y ago
        To be clear, in the US the justice department is under the exec branch. The courts themselves are further disconnected.
        guizmo 2y ago
pc86 2y ago
If your crime is so heinous as to come with life-long punishment, you should be in prison for life. If the idea of putting someone in prison for life for a particular crime makes you take pause, perhaps they shouldn't have any life-long punishment for that crime. This includes all Constitutionally-protected rights: voting, gun rights, whatever one you want to pick.
- like_any_other 2y ago
  Conversely, if there are so many prisoners or the disenfranchised that, in a democracy, they can sway elections and drive policy, isn't that a sign there's something wrong with the system, e.g. disenfranchisement and prison is being used as a weapon against parts of the population? Denying them the vote means the system is that much harder to fix. On the other hand, if only those who really deserve it lose their right to vote (i.e. a small fraction of the population), then it doesn't really matter if they can vote or not - their small numbers mean they won't make a difference. But the benefit is that disenfranchisement can no longer be used as a political weapon.
  - pc86 2y ago
    You shouldn't be able to vote if you are actively in prison on the day of the election. Or maybe cases like house arrest. But if we say that you're able to be walking around in society with us, including probation/parole, you should have all the rights that others have.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  It doesn't come with life-long punishment. She's banned from public office for five years (immediate), and jailed for four years (won't come into effect until after the appeal).
  - pc86 2y ago
    I'm just talking about felons in the US who have served their time in incarceration and finished parole/probation/supervised release being denied multiple rights for the rest of their lives.
Ragnarork 2y ago
If it's been proven that a politician will cheat democracy, how is banning them from running for office a bad thing? And who should decide that if not the courts? How would that be any different than banning someone from running a company after they've been found guilty of fraud or any other way of breaking the law about how to run companies? If they've been proven unable to follow the law, they shouldn't be able to be elected. As some extra context here, the judge mentioned that she was totally recognizing how heavy the situation was. But she mentioned a few things: - it's been found that it was all part of a system designed from the very top of the party (so MLP) to embezzle money - it's been noted that during the entire procedure, all the defendants showed complete denial of the facts and no will to accept that they did something bad As such she pointed out that they was a high risk that they would do it again, and that's what tipped the scale in favor of banning them right away. I agree with that.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  "If they've been proven unable to follow the law, they shouldn't be able to be elected." Because it gives incumbents a strong incentive to try influencing the courts against their opponents. I believe - yes, it is my opinion only - that existence of such incentives and a temptation to act upon them is, in the long run, more dangerous to democracy than allowing felons into elections. People respond to incentives. If we know anything at all about human behavior, it is that people respond to incentives. And there is no shiny nice wall separating democracies from authoritarian states. Countries slide along the scale, and they can absolutely slide in the wrong direction.
  - freen 2y ago
    Only one political party, namely, the far right, has argued that the courts should be politicized and used to punish their political opponents. This is super dangerous “both sides”-ism. Only one side is trying to do what you think “those in power” do. Nazis will argue up and down about their right to free speech, right up until the moment they are in power. And guess what happens then?
    - 2y ago
deepsun 2y ago
Kinda, sometimes politicians gets elected, and tear down the courts who could say against them. Belarus was a democracy for a short time, until the future dictator ordered SWAT team to throw out members of parliament who wanted his impeachment. Then several of them disappeared forever, others got the message. And the democracy ended.
- cmiles74 2y ago
  Donald Trump is in the process of doing this right now. Law firms that worked with the prosecution of many of his cases are being actively pressured. In some cases they are being banned from government owned buildings, banned from lists of law firms the federal government may hire and having security clearances revoked.
  - tlogan 2y ago
    I think Democrats are doing a disservice by not pushing back harder against Trump’s attacks on judges and his calls for their impeachment. The judiciary is one of the few remaining institutions that can check executive overreach, and defending it should be a top priority. More broadly, I believe Democrats would gain much more support if they focused on a few key issues—ones that have broad consensus and appeal to independents—and pursued them with laser focus. Instead, they tend to chase after every single distraction Trump throws their way, which only plays into his strategy.
Apreche 2y ago
The problem is tying this to the category of felony, which is too broad of a category. Someone who committed something heinous like felony assault, there’s still an easy argument to be made that they should be allowed to both run for office and vote. But if someone was guilty of some kind of corruption, bribery, taking bribes, spying, insurrection, treason, organized crime, violating their oath of office, or anything else that suggests they are not going to serve with the best interests of their constituents and the world at heart, they should absolutely not be allowed to run for office, and maybe should not be allowed to vote.
Perfudital 2y ago
[flagged]
nabla9 2y ago
This is Separation of Power Issue and not a clear cut issue. The principle is that Law, Law-making, and executive-power should be separated. It's really who you trust more: courts or the people. 1. French law recognizes that French people are not trusted to weigh in the conviction properly, and the court sentences put limits to how can and can't run. 2. On the other hand, corrupting of the courts would prevent correcting the system by voting. If the courts are corrupt all hope is lost.
- lr1970 2y ago
  > 2. On the other hand, corrupting of the courts would prevent correcting the system by voting. If the courts are corrupt all hope is lost. Just last week a turkish court arrested the mayor of Istanbul under similar "corruption" charges. He happens to be the most popular opposition politician challenging Erdogan. EDIT: forgot to mention that recently Romanian supreme court canceled the elections altogether because the current government did not like the guy who won the first round. And of course he is not allowed to run in the rerun of the elections. People's votes do not seem to count any longer.
  - com 2y ago
    The Romanian justice system didn’t rule the candidate out because “the current government didn’t like him”. Where do you get your information, Fox News? It was because of grievous breaches of campaign financing. The kind of thing that brings the integrity of their electoral system at serious risk.
  - gman83 2y ago
    It's relevant that the corruption charges against Erdoğan's opponent are obviously trumped-up, whereas the ones against Le Pen are entirely legitimate.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
In this case an appeal would normally suspend the verdict so the judge in effect specifically decided to prevent her from running for President by imposing immediate effect on a verdict that isn't final. No doubt that this will only strengthen the claims that this is politically motivated, and the timing is obviously very "interesting"... So unclear how this will play out in public opinion and polls.

by tlogan 2y ago

eclecticfrank 2y ago

The temporary loss of the right to stand for election is a common punishment in France when politicians are convicted of corruption and breach of trust.

pc86 2y ago
I don't think anyone is questioning whether it's legal, simply whether it's right or ideologically consistent with people who claim to be pro-democracy.

voytec 2y ago

> Separately, here in the U.S., I take issue with the fact that ex-felons are denied the right to vote. You have a _CURRENT_ felon serving as POTUS.

machomaster 2y ago
Strawman. "right to vote" != "right to be elected"
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  Good thing Florida exempted Trump from their "convicted felons can't vote" laws, too, huh? Oh, it's Trump, they said, well, yes, he has been convicted, but because a sentence has not been imposed or completed he's akshualllly not reallly a felon... yet. All the inmates in Florida prisons whose sentences have not been completed were very surprised to learn they were still eligible to vote. Except, no, this is just for Trump.
  - darthrupert 2y ago
    We all know that American democracy is a sad broken joke, but this piece of news is about France, which seems to have a functioning one.

petre 2y ago

That's how democracy works in Europe: the courts are part of the checks and ballances, politicians have to be transparent about campaign financing so that we hopefully don't get Uncle Adolph running the show again, needing Allied intervention again and bombs dropped on innocent people and beer factories. Le Pen's case is similar to Sarkozy takng a briefcase of cash from Gaddafi to finance hus campaign (and then waging war agsinst him) but it's more nuanced, because instead she used EU funds when Putin's funding dried up due to the need to finance his war. So basically she should probably be in the same place that Sarkozy is now or wherever the court will decide based on evidence.

jltsiren 2y ago

Do you believe that non-citizens should be allowed to run for any office? Or that citizens living outside a state/district should be allowed to represent that state/distict? If not, courts and/or election officials must have the power to disqualify individuals. As long as there are any legal requirements for a candidate, someone must make the final decision on whether a potential candidate fulfills the requirements.

mmooss 2y ago

There is separation of powers: The legislature made the law, the executive enforces it, the courts interpet it. The legislature is more responsible than the courts, IMHO. The real responsible person is Marine Le Pen: Don't commit crimes and you won't have these problems.

theshrike79 2y ago

Ex-felons should be allowed to vote. Felons shouldn't be eligible for political positions though.

GTP 2y ago

We should look at the whole legal framework, maybe it's part of the check and balances between the executive, legislative and judicial powers.

beernet 2y ago

>> courts shouldn’t have the power to disqualify individuals from running for office. Why would you want that? Didn't history teach us better? >> Separately, here in the U.S., I take issue with the fact that ex-felons are denied the right to vote Well, ex-felons can become Potus, so that's that.

noitpmeder 2y ago
>> Why would you want that? Didn't history teach us better? Once you give the courts the power to disqualify candidates you open the door to massive potential for political witch hunts with the express goal of disqualifying the opposition. Since the executive branch effectively controls the justice department, this is a pretty scary thought.
- jmague 2y ago
  At least in France, the courts are independent of the executive.
  - noitpmeder 2y ago
    Thanks for this context! Pretty pivotal piece of info.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      If a court isn't independent of the executive, something is very seriously wrong (see Poland)
      - noitpmeder 2y ago
        To be clear, in the US the justice department is under the exec branch. The courts themselves are further disconnected.
        guizmo 2y ago

pc86 2y ago

If your crime is so heinous as to come with life-long punishment, you should be in prison for life. If the idea of putting someone in prison for life for a particular crime makes you take pause, perhaps they shouldn't have any life-long punishment for that crime. This includes all Constitutionally-protected rights: voting, gun rights, whatever one you want to pick.

like_any_other 2y ago
Conversely, if there are so many prisoners or the disenfranchised that, in a democracy, they can sway elections and drive policy, isn't that a sign there's something wrong with the system, e.g. disenfranchisement and prison is being used as a weapon against parts of the population? Denying them the vote means the system is that much harder to fix. On the other hand, if only those who really deserve it lose their right to vote (i.e. a small fraction of the population), then it doesn't really matter if they can vote or not - their small numbers mean they won't make a difference. But the benefit is that disenfranchisement can no longer be used as a political weapon.
- pc86 2y ago
  You shouldn't be able to vote if you are actively in prison on the day of the election. Or maybe cases like house arrest. But if we say that you're able to be walking around in society with us, including probation/parole, you should have all the rights that others have.
rsynnott 2y ago
It doesn't come with life-long punishment. She's banned from public office for five years (immediate), and jailed for four years (won't come into effect until after the appeal).
- pc86 2y ago
  I'm just talking about felons in the US who have served their time in incarceration and finished parole/probation/supervised release being denied multiple rights for the rest of their lives.

Ragnarork 2y ago

If it's been proven that a politician will cheat democracy, how is banning them from running for office a bad thing? And who should decide that if not the courts? How would that be any different than banning someone from running a company after they've been found guilty of fraud or any other way of breaking the law about how to run companies? If they've been proven unable to follow the law, they shouldn't be able to be elected. As some extra context here, the judge mentioned that she was totally recognizing how heavy the situation was. But she mentioned a few things: - it's been found that it was all part of a system designed from the very top of the party (so MLP) to embezzle money - it's been noted that during the entire procedure, all the defendants showed complete denial of the facts and no will to accept that they did something bad As such she pointed out that they was a high risk that they would do it again, and that's what tipped the scale in favor of banning them right away. I agree with that.

inglor_cz 2y ago
"If they've been proven unable to follow the law, they shouldn't be able to be elected." Because it gives incumbents a strong incentive to try influencing the courts against their opponents. I believe - yes, it is my opinion only - that existence of such incentives and a temptation to act upon them is, in the long run, more dangerous to democracy than allowing felons into elections. People respond to incentives. If we know anything at all about human behavior, it is that people respond to incentives. And there is no shiny nice wall separating democracies from authoritarian states. Countries slide along the scale, and they can absolutely slide in the wrong direction.
- freen 2y ago
  Only one political party, namely, the far right, has argued that the courts should be politicized and used to punish their political opponents. This is super dangerous “both sides”-ism. Only one side is trying to do what you think “those in power” do. Nazis will argue up and down about their right to free speech, right up until the moment they are in power. And guess what happens then?
  - 2y ago

deepsun 2y ago

Kinda, sometimes politicians gets elected, and tear down the courts who could say against them. Belarus was a democracy for a short time, until the future dictator ordered SWAT team to throw out members of parliament who wanted his impeachment. Then several of them disappeared forever, others got the message. And the democracy ended.

cmiles74 2y ago
Donald Trump is in the process of doing this right now. Law firms that worked with the prosecution of many of his cases are being actively pressured. In some cases they are being banned from government owned buildings, banned from lists of law firms the federal government may hire and having security clearances revoked.
- tlogan 2y ago
  I think Democrats are doing a disservice by not pushing back harder against Trump’s attacks on judges and his calls for their impeachment. The judiciary is one of the few remaining institutions that can check executive overreach, and defending it should be a top priority. More broadly, I believe Democrats would gain much more support if they focused on a few key issues—ones that have broad consensus and appeal to independents—and pursued them with laser focus. Instead, they tend to chase after every single distraction Trump throws their way, which only plays into his strategy.

Apreche 2y ago

The problem is tying this to the category of felony, which is too broad of a category. Someone who committed something heinous like felony assault, there’s still an easy argument to be made that they should be allowed to both run for office and vote. But if someone was guilty of some kind of corruption, bribery, taking bribes, spying, insurrection, treason, organized crime, violating their oath of office, or anything else that suggests they are not going to serve with the best interests of their constituents and the world at heart, they should absolutely not be allowed to run for office, and maybe should not be allowed to vote.

Perfudital 2y ago

[flagged]

nabla9 2y ago

This is Separation of Power Issue and not a clear cut issue. The principle is that Law, Law-making, and executive-power should be separated. It's really who you trust more: courts or the people. 1. French law recognizes that French people are not trusted to weigh in the conviction properly, and the court sentences put limits to how can and can't run. 2. On the other hand, corrupting of the courts would prevent correcting the system by voting. If the courts are corrupt all hope is lost.

lr1970 2y ago
> 2. On the other hand, corrupting of the courts would prevent correcting the system by voting. If the courts are corrupt all hope is lost. Just last week a turkish court arrested the mayor of Istanbul under similar "corruption" charges. He happens to be the most popular opposition politician challenging Erdogan. EDIT: forgot to mention that recently Romanian supreme court canceled the elections altogether because the current government did not like the guy who won the first round. And of course he is not allowed to run in the rerun of the elections. People's votes do not seem to count any longer.
- com 2y ago
  The Romanian justice system didn’t rule the candidate out because “the current government didn’t like him”. Where do you get your information, Fox News? It was because of grievous breaches of campaign financing. The kind of thing that brings the integrity of their electoral system at serious risk.
- gman83 2y ago
  It's relevant that the corruption charges against Erdoğan's opponent are obviously trumped-up, whereas the ones against Le Pen are entirely legitimate.

mytailorisrich 2y ago

In this case an appeal would normally suspend the verdict so the judge in effect specifically decided to prevent her from running for President by imposing immediate effect on a verdict that isn't final. No doubt that this will only strengthen the claims that this is politically motivated, and the timing is obviously very "interesting"... So unclear how this will play out in public opinion and polls.