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| The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on federal criminal charges is a first for the United States, but such cases have become fairly common globally. In the past two decades, several dozen nations have prosecuted a former head of government or head of state. |
| 前总统特朗普遭联邦刑事指控，对美国来说前所未有，但在全球范围内已相当普遍。在过去的20年里，几十个国家对前政府首脑或国家元首提起过公诉。 |
| And while Mr. Trump’s allies have said repeatedly that such charges — he was also indicted on separate state charges in New York in March — are the work of a “banana republic,” several of the cases have occurred in countries that routinely rank among the world’s freest, most democratic and wealthiest. |
| 虽然特朗普的盟友一再表示此类指控——他还于3月因另一项州指控被纽约州起诉——是“香蕉共和国”的做法，但其中一些案例发生在通常被列为世界上最自由、民主和富有的国家。 |
| In just the past 15 years, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac of France, Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak of South Korea and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy have all been prosecuted for corruption and found guilty. The list of those criminally charged also includes former democratically elected leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa and Taiwan. |
| 仅仅在过去的15年里，法国的萨科齐和希拉克，韩国的朴槿惠和李明博，意大利的贝卢斯科尼都因腐败被起诉并被判有罪。受刑事指控的名单还包括阿根廷、巴西、巴基斯坦、秘鲁、南非和台湾的前民选领导人。 |
| In the 1980s, Kakuei Tanaka, a former prime minister of Japan, was convicted. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is currently on trial on corruption charges. |
| 80年代，日本前首相田中角荣被定罪。以色列总理内塔尼亚胡目前正因腐败指控接受审判。 |
| “It’s always a big deal when a former president or prime minister is indicted, but in most democracies, it is normal when they’re credibly accused of serious crimes,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard who has written about dozens of countries’ transition to democracy. The United States, he said, has been an outlier in its reluctance to charge a former leader. |
| “前总统或总理被起诉始终都是一件大事，但在大多数民主国家，有理有据地指控他们犯有严重罪行是很正常的，”哈佛大学政府学教授史蒂文·莱维茨基说，他曾就数十个国家的民主过渡撰写文章。他说，美国是个例外，它不愿指控其前领导人。 |
| “Political systems have to handle it,” he added. “They have to. Because the alternative — saying some people are above the law — is much worse.” |
| “政治制度必须予以处理，”他还说。“他们必须这样做。因为另一个选择要更糟糕，即表示有些人可以凌驾于法律之上。” |
| Prosecutions can reflect that the rule of law is strong, that even the powerful are not above the courts and can be held to account. But they can also show that the rule of law is weak, that the legal system is easily weaponized against political enemies. |
| 公诉可以反映法治的强健，即使是有权势的人也不能凌驾于法庭之上，并且可以被追究责任。但这些起诉也可能表明法治薄弱，即法律体系很容易被当成对付政敌的武器。 |
| “Many people are going to immediately assume that it’s for political reasons, and it’s going to be very hard, if not impossible, to persuade them that it’s a legitimate, nonpolitical prosecution,” said John B. Bellinger III, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and a top legal official during President George W. Bush’s administration. |
| “很多人会立即假设这是出于政治原因，而且要说服他们这是合法的、非政治性的起诉，即使不是不可能，也是非常困难的，”华盛顿外交关系委员会兼任高级研究员、曾在乔治·W·布什政府中主管法务的约翰·B·贝林杰三世说。 |
| That reaction is likely to be more severe, political scientists say, in a country where politics are highly polarized and partisan. If the defendant’s political allies are willing to see how the legal process plays out rather than jump to the accused leader’s defense, claims of prosecutorial bias typically gain less traction. |
| 政治学家说，在一个政治高度两极化和党派化的国家，这种反应可能会更加严重。如果被告的政治盟友愿意静待法律程序给出结果，而不是直接为被指控的领导人辩护，那么检控偏误的说法通常不会获得多少关注。 |
| Nathalie Tocci, an Italian political scientist, has some sobering advice for well-meaning prosecutors weighing such cases: “I don’t think you can get it right.” |
| 意大利政治学家纳塔莉·托奇给那些怀着良好动机考虑此类诉讼的检察官泼了冷水：“我不认为你能把这事办好。” |
| That is not the same as advising against it. |
| 这与不建议起诉是有区别的。 |
| “If you think, legally speaking, there was a crime and you have to proceed, you just do it,” Ms. Tocci said. “But there’s always a justice story and a politics story, and one should try to keep them separated, but it’s impossible.” |
| “如果你认为法律上讲存在犯罪并且你必须推进，你就去做，”托奇说。“但这种事永远有司法和政治两个层面，人们应该尽量将它们分开，但那是不可能的。” |
| Authoritarian leaders have historically repressed their opponents without much concern for even the appearance of due process. But in recent years, dozens of such governments have instead used courts, with verdicts foreordained, to publicly condemn their ousted adversaries and frighten others into submission. |
| 历史上的威权领导人向来会镇压他们的对手，连表面上的程序正义都无需太顾忌。但近年来，数十个这样的政府转而利用法院，用预先决定了的判决去公开谴责被赶下台的对手，并恐吓其他人就范。 |
| It is in democracies, where public opinion matters more and there is at least some expectation of impartial justice, that a prosecutor’s job is most delicate. The evenhanded application of the law can be painted as political retribution, and vice versa, putting added pressure on prosecutors deciding whether to proceed. |
| 检察官的工作在民主国家是最为棘手的，因为在这些国家，公众舆论更重要，并且对公正司法至少有一定的期望。法律的公正适用可能被描绘成政治报复，反之亦然，给检察官决定是否进行诉讼增加了压力。 |
| Mr. Berlusconi, a three-time prime minister, has been prosecuted several times, was convicted of tax fraud, has had other guilty verdicts overturned on appeal and has escaped other charges only by having the laws changed. |
| 曾三度担任总理的贝卢斯科尼多次被公诉，被判犯有税务欺诈罪，其他有罪判决通过上诉被推翻，还有一些指控是通过修改法律逃脱的。 |
| Through it all, he has, like Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump, spent years portraying himself as a victim persecuted by an out-of-control and politicized system, using that claim to rally his supporters, surviving scandal after scandal. |
| 自始至终，他都像内塔尼亚胡和特朗普一样，花了数年时间将自己描绘成一个被失控且政治化的制度迫害的受害者，利用这一说法来团结他的支持者，在一个接一个的丑闻中幸存下来。 |
| That combination, Ms. Tocci said, can do serious damage to public faith in the justice system — the defendant’s supporters see the system as illegitimate, while the leader’s opponents see it as ineffectual. |
| 托奇说，这些情况结合起来会严重损害公众对司法系统的信心——被告的支持者认为司法系统名不正言不顺，而领导人的反对者则认为它不起作用。 |
| “If there is an acquittal, it can be proof that the justice system worked,” she said, “but people will claim that it was all about nothing and it was politically driven.” |
| “如果判决无罪，就可以证明司法系统发挥了作用，”她说，“但人们会声称这一切都是无中生有，是出于政治目的。” |
| Yet, she added, “Looking at the Berlusconi cases, I would still say it was right to do it, even if it made no difference, even if it prolonged his political life.” |
| 然而，她还说，“考虑到贝卢斯科尼的案例，我仍然会说这样做是正确的，即使没有改变什么，即使这延长了他的政治生命。” |
| Legal experts point to ample ethical gray areas. A prosecution can center on what may be a real crime, yet still be politically motivated or be open to question. |
| 法律专家指出了大量的道德灰色地带。指控可能是围绕着真正的犯罪，但仍然可以具有政治动机或值得被怀疑。 |
| Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was convicted of money laundering and corruption, but the country’s top court threw out the charges in 2021 because of bias by the judge, after it was revealed that the jurist had extensive improper, private communication with the prosecutors, consulting with them on strategy. Mr. Lula was released from prison after 19 months, ran again for president last year — and won. |
| 巴西的路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦被判洗钱和腐败罪名成立，但该国最高法院在2021年因法官的偏见而驳回了这些指控，此前有消息称这位法官与检察官进行了大量不正当的私下沟通，与他们就策略进行磋商。卢拉在19个月后出狱，去年再次竞选总统并获胜。 |
| Another murky area involves forms of corruption that are practiced widely and with impunity. |
| 另一个不明朗的领域涉及被广泛采用且不受惩罚的腐败形式。 |
| Justin Vaïsse, a historian and former official in France’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, said that Mr. Lula “broke some rules and principles, but everybody did the same thing and others were probably doing worse,” making him what some called a target of politically motivated selective prosecution. |
| 前法国外交部官员、历史学家贾斯汀·瓦伊斯表示，卢拉“违反了一些规则和原则，但所有人都是这么做的，有的甚至更加恶劣”，这使他成为一些人所说的出于政治动机的针对性起诉的目标。 |
| Mr. Chirac, he added, fell not to “weaponization of the legal system,” but to shifting ethical standards. After serving as president of France, Mr. Chirac was convicted of creating fake jobs for political allies when he was mayor of Paris decades earlier. |
| 他还说，希拉克没有受制于“法律体系的武器化”，而是栽在操守准则的转变上。希拉克在卸任法国总统后被定罪，是因为他在几十年前担任巴黎市长时为政治盟友设立了虚假官职。 |
| “Some of the things that Chirac did had been common practice at the time,” Mr. Vaïsse said. |
| “希拉克所做的一些事情在当时是司空见惯的，”瓦伊斯说。 |
| To ensure fairness — or the appearance of fairness — prosecutors, like judges, should be “insulated from political pressures,” Mr. Bellinger said, adding that “as best as possible,” they themselves should be apolitical. |
| 贝林格说，为确保公平——或表面上的公平——检察官和法官一样，应该“不受政治压力的影响”。他还说，他们自己应该“尽可能地”去政治化。 |
| He acknowledged that it was hard for officials to convince the public of their impartiality when they face constant accusations of bias and when they are appointed by elected officeholders or are, themselves, elected. |
| 他承认，当官员们不断被指责有偏见，以及当他们由民选公职人员任命或他们自己就是通过民选上任时，很难让公众相信他们的公正性。 |
| But those challenges, as difficult as they are, cannot dissuade the justice system from taking on legitimate cases against political leaders, he and other experts said. |
| 但他和其他专家表示，即使面临如此艰巨的挑战，司法系统也应该敢于推进针对政治领导人的合理案件。 |
| “People will throw potshots at the process any time they’re arrested; that is common,” Mr. Levitsky said. “But if you rob a bank and I arrest you, and you threaten to throw a hand grenade at the courthouse, the problem is not that I arrested you for robbing a bank.” |
| “人在被捕的时候总是会对司法程序发起肆意的攻击，这很常见，”莱维茨基说。“但如果你抢了一家银行，我逮捕了你，你威胁要向法院扔手榴弹，那么错不在我因为你抢劫银行而逮捕你。” |
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