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My concern is that courts can become corrupted or influenced by those in power, which creates a serious problem. While courts should have the authority to issue sentences—like prison terms—they shouldn’t be the ones deciding who the public is allowed to vote for.

If people want to vote for someone, that’s their democratic right. And if they make a mistake, they’ll learn from the consequences. But the decision should ultimately rest with the voters, not the courts.

That argument makes sense in most cases. If the candidate is a rapist, voters can and should be the ones to disqualify them.

But this is a case of cheating. If a candidate cheats in an election, that should disqualify them because otherwise the election is tainted.

This is an embezzlement case. No-one tampered with election results, so can you explain how there is any logic to your argument?

They used the money on the election campaign.

All I have seen is that four people worked for the party while being paid by the EU. Nothing like routing money to advertising campaigns or anything that would actually swing an election. And the headlines are all about embezzlement, not election fraud. So this seems like a stretch.

I read that 9 European representatives, plus 12 assistants, plus 4 other members of the party were found guilty as part of a scheme to earn illegally EUR 2.9M for the party.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_des_assistants_parleme...

In my experience, boots on the ground are far more effective at affecting election outcomes than advertising campaigns are.

Go and congratulate Kamala for her win against Trump.

This is just the latest example showing how wrong your take is.

So lets say you have a 6 sided die and you have two options.

1. You win when a 1 is rolled

2. You win when a 1 or a 2 is rolled

Despite both of the situations being less than 50% the 2nd one is still more effective.

(Also your comment implies Trump's campaign doesn't have boots on the ground which obviously isn't true ...)

Say the person who the public vote for is in prison (and to make it "easier", prior to running for office. Or maybe they were a write-in).

That decision should lie with the voters, you say.

So which takes precedence? Prison, where they are serving a sentence? Or the democratic role?

After all, the same public, using their democratic rights, voted for a system in which that person was sentenced to prison.

So which vote is more important? The vote that says that "X is a crime, and if you are justly convicted, the sentence is Y"? Or the vote that says "If I want you to be our leader, that's more important than that previous application of justice"?

The appeals process is the standard here.

You aren’t the first person to have the thought you are expounding above.

"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.

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?

I come from a former Communist country and the far left in power twisted justice beyond any recognition. We had the "pleasure" being occupied by the Nazis and then ruled by the Stalinists and the bothside-ism is absolutely spot on, because these two systems are like evil brothers.

And as for France, that is why I don't trust Mélenchon any more than Le Pen, and they have 50 per cent of voters between them. Two far-somethings don't make a democracy.

Neither the Nazis, nor Stalinists even remotely approximate the modern left in the US, or elsewhere.

The debate is effectively between classical Liberalism, and authoritarianism/patromonialism/fascism.

Forget what people called themselves: the peoples republic of North Korea certainly isn’t a republic.

Socialist Left/Capitalist Right is an outdated dichotomy that is only in service of authoritarians.

> If it's been proven that a politician will cheat democracy, how is banning them from running for office a bad thing?

You just answer your own question!

Since politicians will cheat democracy, they will use the system to ban people running for office that threaten their power.

Judges sitting in those courts are not politicians elected to take decisions weighted by how their constituents will like them and reelect them, but people who've studied law and its application (unlike politicians who can be anyone), who have been vetted by peers for their capacity to be law "technicians", and whose job is to "apply" the law, whether they disagree with it or not.

That's the concept of the separation of powers. Of course judges will have opinions and can never truly be objective (no such thing exists anyway), but their main job is to apply the law. And the concept of appeal and (in France) "cassation", which meana judgment can be revised up to two times, are there so that no single judge ruling can be definitive in isolation.

If politicians can use the judicial system to ban political opponents, the system is broken and powers are not separated in the right way. And I'll definitely not say that France has a perfect separation (the president concentrate a lot more than it should), but it's still there and this wasn't such a case (in the past two years, Le Pen and the RN is the group that Macron has been willingly compromising with and letting arbitrate a lot of stuff)

I think the US courts systems is comprised of judges who generally try to apply the law in an impartial manner.

But judges don't determine which cases they will hear, prosecutors do.

You could have 12 people violate the law, but if the prosecutor decides not to pursue 11 of them, only the 1 will face any consequences.

US code is comprised of tens of thousands of laws. It's not hard to find one that you've violated at some point in your life.

Most of the time they aren't prosecuted. But if they decide to, a judge will have to find you guilty.

"been proven" by who?

There is no final arbitrator that is above all others.

Liberal democracies are build on the principle that no institution is beyond corruption. That's why they build systems based on separation of powers and checks and balances.

(1) Courts should be independent, because executive branch can be corrupt and law-making branch (voters and their representatives) don't always want to follow the laws they set up.

(2) Law making branch (elections, representatives) should be immune from courts and executive branch messing with them. Lawmakers have immunity from courts and executive. Courts and executive branch should not be able to limit candidates too much.

(3) Executive branch should execute laws, but not allowed to make them. Courts should keep the executive branch in check and have at least some immunity form it.

It's all balancing acts. Different countries have different balances.

> And who should decide that if not the courts?

We could trust voters to take that into the account when making decision who to vote.

> Liberal democracies are build on the principle that no institution is beyond corruption.

It's an ontological issue, if everyone is potentially compromised, how do you know anything ? It's also leveraged by biased medias to discredit old institutions and suddenly no more counter powers..

It's the core of liberal democracy.

It's the pragmatic acknowledgment that human fallibility necessitated institutional safeguards against the concentration of power. Enlightenment thinkers like Montesquieu, came up with it.

> It's an ontological issue, if everyone is potentially compromised, how do you know anything ?

You just made a strong case for freedom of speech and free press.