Talk:List of former heads of democratic countries charged with crimes

Heads of governments
Unlike the USA, in Israel, Italy and Malaysia, the head of state and the head of government are two distinct functions. The prime ministers in these countries are heads of government, not heads of state. They should be either removed, or this page should be renamed in something like 'List of former heads of states and heads of governments in democratic countries, charged with crimes'. -- 21:52, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The title is already overlong. How about "List of former heads of democratic countries charged with crimes"? Bongolian (talk) 00:43, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That is much better. -- 01:11, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Peru
There are a few problems I have with this section; firstly, while Fujimori was democratically elected initially, he was a dictator for most of his reign. There are similar problems when we run into Castillo, as the reason he was impeached was essentially because of the Fujimori-era constitution, which is arguably undemocratic as it allows the Peruvian Congress to remove a democratically elected president at any time for basically no reason, which had happened multiple times in recent years. Many of the sections on Latin American countries have these issues, as most of them were until recently dictatorships and many of the political structures from the times are still in place, making them not as democratic as they seem. In general, covering those countries requires a level of nuance that you're not likely to see in western sources like the New York Times. Plutocow (talk) 01:32, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * And I'm also wondering what the point of this article is. Obviously, it was made in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid and presumably wanted to show that charging Trump wouldn't be unprecedented and is actually a good thing for democracies to do. Problem is, the article goes a bit far in the other direction, and in imperfect democracies criminal investigations have been used to crush political opponents, which is common in Latin America. Since the article doesn't go into the specifics of any of these cases at all, it's hard to say what I'm supposed to take away from it. Plutocow (talk) 01:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Why are you trying to whitewash Castillo again, Pluto? He's an homophobe prick. What he did was a coup attempt. That's why he was arrested. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 01:40, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * All of the names in Latam are guilty. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 01:41, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If it was a coup attempt, then so was Congress trying to impeach him three times for no reason. This isn't even a new problem, they did the same thing to center-right Martín Vizcarra. What Castillo did was stupid, largely because it would have only resulted in chaos, but calling it a coup attempt was reductive. Plutocow (talk) 01:45, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Two wrongs make a right. It was a coup, the media in Latin America called it a coup,  unlike you I can read in Spanish. The difference between the impeachment attempts is that they were at least supported by the Constitution. Yes, the Constitution written by Fujimori is bad. But unlike what Castillo did, it wasn't illegal. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 01:50, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The problem with this article is it's about democratic countries and a constitution inherited from a dictatorship isn't exactly, you know, democratic, especially when democratically elected leaders can be overthrown for any reason by Congress. The rest of the discussion I'll continue on your talk page, since it's not relevant to the article. Plutocow (talk) 02:02, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That's not always true. The was written by the fascists and it's very influential worldwide (Polyhedral Theory, by Alberto Asquini), and the Argentine Constituion survived the most brutal right-wing dictatorship in Latam's history. In the Peruvian case, while there are indeed some problems, they are still regarded as a democracy by the EIU and the Freedom House. Impeaching Castillo showed the strenght of their institutions if you want my opinion. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 02:09, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * In this case, however, the constitution essentially makes it so that democratically-elected leaders have no real power as Congress has pretty much unlimited impeachment power to keep them in line, be they leftists like Castillo or even rightists who aren't right enough like Vizcarra. But regardless of whether or not Peru counts as a democracy, my main problem (which I could've worded better) is the page essentially equates it with say, France or the US, when not every democracy is equally democratic and the article essentially lacks any real nuance on the matter. Plutocow (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If it was just a case of impeachment, I wouldn't have put Castillo there. Impeachment is generally regarded as a political rather than criminal process. There were pre-existing charges of corruption against Castillo to which Castillo was immune from prosecution until leaving office. Castillo overplayed his hand by threatening an autogolpe, and thus expedited his own prosecution. Bongolian (talk) 02:43, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * He definitely belongs here, he was democratically elected and he was charged with a crime. What is in contention here is how the article should treat him, though really, pretty much all the sections in the article need more detail. Fujimori definitely needed to be removed as I feel that including outright dictators here really muddles the purpose of this article. Plutocow (talk) 05:30, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * OK. Bongolian (talk) 07:02, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Thailand
Thailand is, according to the latest Democracy Index report, a flawed democracy, and they have, I believe, many former heads of democratic countries that were charged with crimes. You might want to take a look. I would do it myself, but I'm rather busy right now. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 18:17, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * There have been allegations of corruption for several prime ministers, but the only one involving criminal charges appears to be  who was convicted in 2008, but essentially escaped justice. Bongolian (talk) 04:12, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sorry for making you waste your time. I was sure a few of them were charged. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 15:53, 20 March 2023 (UTC)