The mighty and the law

There is something eerily common to death and the law. Both can shame a man or woman, no matter how wealthy or influential or high in the perking order of societal achievements he or she may be.

In January 2017, Donald Trump became the president of the United States of America. Like all the men who took residence in the White House before him in the more than 200 years of the nation’s history, he too swore to defend and protect the constitution of the United States. The oath committed him to the non-breach of any of the sacred provisions of the constitution. He is also obliged not to allow anyone to do so.

Much rides on the sanctity of the constitution. A president’s primary constitutional duty is to fully and unapologetically protect its sanctity against being soiled by his greed, ambition or corruption. It is not a presidential duty the Americans take lightly. American citizens and their institutions keep an eagle eye on the protection of the sanctity of the constitution. A red light comes on when there is either a breach or a potential breach.

The problem is that nothing in life prepares a man against his personal weaknesses, interests and greed. Matters are made worse when the ambition to win or capture or retain power becomes the ultimate objective. This drives the mighty to nibble at the law in the belief that given their position, the law must necessarily look the other way while they get away with breaching it. Mighty men do some pretty childish things because they believe they are the law and the constitution. Trump, perhaps did not think he was allegedly breaching the same constitution he swore on oath to defend and protect when he tried to bend to serve his personal political interests. It is accountability time.

Donald Trump is now confronted with the falsity of his right to do as he wishes just because he is the president, to wit, no president is above the law. If he swore to defend and protect the constitution then he must be seen to scrupulously defend and protect it. His country men and women expect him to do just that. The future of the republic rides on the president being seen as the defender and protector of the constitution and the rule of law, even if he is inclined to behave more like a cowboy than a statesman.

The House of Representatives has already tried Trump and found him guilty on alleged violations of the constitution to benefit him and enhance his political fortunes in the presidential elections this year. Trump became the third president in the history of that country to be impeached. The good thing about that is that generally, American presidents had been men of their words as far as the defence and the protection of the constitution is concerned. Nor should we forget that it also indicates that the legislators do not resort to impeachment either for the fun of it or the reckless exercise of their legislative powers. They do so to strengthen the system and protect it from reckless abuse by crooks entrusted with its protection.

The final say about Trump’s political fate in the White House now lies with the senate. The case moved there this week. The senate has duly and formally served him with the notice of his trial, probably beginning this Tuesday. The trial would be a riveting spectacle throughout the world. We would watch the American system at work and appreciate its resilience. But perhaps more importantly, we want to see how the mighty falls – and also weeps.

Trump is in some luck. His party, the Republican, controls the senate and the Democrats are not likely to win over some of the Republicans to get the two-thirds majority required by the constitution before a president could be removed from office. He would likely survive, thanks to the intrusion of politics; always the deciding factor in the messy attitude of the mighty. But an important statement would have been made for the history books: Americans want their leaders to play by the rules.

In the two cases before this, the two presidents were not removed from office. They too survived in the senate. The first man to be impeached, Andrew Jackson, survived by only one vote. Bill Clinton, at number two, escaped because the senators did not think it was right to remove the president from office because of a woman. But I do not think the non-removal of the men suggests in any way that an impeachment is a frivolous political gamesmanship. It is a serious matter and every president, even one given to bluffing like Trump, knows it is a very dark spot on his legacy.

Whatever the final outcome of this drama might be, it would take something away from Trump’s swagger and constantly remind him that the framers of his country’s constitution did a delicate balancing act of creating a monarchy but stripped it of the divine rights of the king. A king without royal powers? Yep.

I am afraid this is something third leaders whose countries borrowed the American presidential system do not quite understand. It is undermined in third world countries by the word executive that attends the system. If you have an executive president or an executive governor or an executive local government chairman, they have executive powers to do as they wish, whatever the constitution might say.

Still, Trump’s trial should be a sobering lesson for executive presidents in developing countries. That the most powerful man on earth could be reduced to a helpless man whose political fate is now to be determined by the legislators, tells you, in the immortal word of the Onitsha lorry owner, that no condition is permanent. No man is so powerful or so wealthy or so influential that he cannot be made to give an account of himself, if the need arises, to ordinary men and women in his country. Despite his immense powers, Trump is subject to the laws and the constitution like the homeless on the streets of New York City. This, then is the fundamental difference between a settled democracy and one in permanent flux. In the former, the law sets the limits of power; in the latter the law is too flexible to protect itself from egregious misuse or outright abuse.