IMPEACHMENT, DIREITO E POLÍTICA:

LIÇÕES A PARTIR DO CASO ANDREW JOHNSON

Abstract

The aim of this work is to demonstrate that the requirement to specify the impeachable offenses is at the root of the distinction between the form of political accountability that exists in the parliamentary and presidential systems of government, based on the way in which these offenses were understood in the Andrew Johnson case. In a comparative perspective, and through eminently bibliographic research, it is sustained here that impeachment is an institute of a mixed nature, combining political and legal elements, according to the model pioneered by American constitutionalism. Thus, the tension between law and politics, inherent to the impeachment, prevents attempts of presidential remove without demonstrating the practice of any offense disapproved by the constitutional order, especially in the Brazilian case in which the 1988 Constitution requires a special law to define the impeachable offenses and establish its rules of procedure and judgment, adopts the principle of nullum crimen sine lege and the Supreme Court, in line with its historically constructed jurisprudence, understands the institute as having, at least in part, a juridical-criminal nature.