| Preston V. Republic of Krameria | Case No. SC/ | | --- | --- |
Brief in support of Respondent, the Republic.
The first instance of this case held that Title 2, Section 1, Subsection 3 of the Republic Electoral Act of March 2026 (6 K.C.C. §101.2(b)) is unconstitutional because impeachment, by definition, constitutes a criminal prosecution. Congress’s authority to impeach only applies in two instances under Article 27: when impeaching the President, or when impeaching a Justice of the Supreme Court(Const. Art. 27). Amicus does not ask this Court to revisit the holding of 101.2(b), rather Amicus concurs in the declaration. However, the reasoning differs from the original holding, as the provision refers to “the same method as any other government official,” which prescribes a procedure that does not exist in Kramerian law, nor can it be attributed to the 2 impeachment procedures within the Constitution(Const. Art. 27).
What Amicus cannot accept is the reasoning which Freland arrived at in their conclusion. That reasoning would cause, no less than, absurd consequences should the Court accept the ruling provided by Justice Freland. That reasoning holds that the definition of “impeachment” is a criminal prosecution when considering the terms “high crime” and “offense,” as well as its transitive verb, “impeach,” being defined as “to charge with a crime or misdemeanor.” Freland further held that Congressional prosecutions are neither “necessary,” since the Department of Justice already exists to levy criminal charges, nor “proper,” and therefore, spare for explicit enumeration, would exceed the necessary and proper clause. Furthermore, Freland stated that a “lower statute” such as the REA cannot expand Congressional authority beyond what the Constitution provides. This includes extending impeachment to the Directors of the KEB. As such, this reasoning limits Congress’s power to provide a procedure for impeachment. (See SC-CV-13, Preston v. Republic of Krameria, Preston, Ct. First Instance, June 15, 2026; Freland, J).
Amicus submits that this definition is wrong on 3 reasons.
First, the Constitution deliberately separates the terms “offence”(See Const. Art. 27), “Impeach[ment]” (See Const. Art. 27, art. 34), and “criminal prosecution”(See Const. Art. 50), using each in distinct contexts. Article 27 itself grants Congress the power to “define and punish offenses against the Republic” as a separate enumerated power from its impeachment authority, meaning that if “offense,” as Freland’s chosen definition holds, were synonymous with the criminal prosecution inherent in impeachment, the two powers would be surplusage, and would therefore be redundant within the same Article. Furthermore, Article 50 separates itself and exhaustively defines what “criminal prosecution” is under Kramerian law: The presumption of innocence, the right to counsel, the right to a speedy and public trial, and the right to confront witnesses. Yet nowhere within Art. 50 does it state “impeach” or “impeachment,” and this absence is intentional to discern separate proceedings with separate purposes.
Second, even granting the premise that impeachment requires explicit enumeration, Congress’s power to create the KEB necessarily implies the power to regulate and remove its own Directors under the necessary and proper clause (Const. Art. 27). The ruling even concedes that “Congress may have the right to remove KEB Directors” and that “removing statutory officials is one matter” (See Preston) distinct from prosecuting them. The KEB and its Directors are creatures of statute, created by Congress through the REA, possessing no constitutional pedigree independent of the statute. Having created the office, Congress retained, at a minimum, the power to regulate it and the ability to remove the Directors, which is the most basic form that regulatory power can take. The only defect in 101.2(b) is its reference to a removal method that does not exist.
Third, the consequences that flow from treating impeachment as a criminal prosecution are absurd, and this Court should employ the doctrine of reductio ad absurdum to reject Freland’s definition on this basis alone. This is not a definition this court can adopt.
Beyond the specific defect in 101.2(b), this Court should affirmatively hold that Congress retains the power to prescribe an impeachment process for officers of its own creation, separate from the two impeachment processes Article 27 enumerates for the President and Justices for the Supreme Court. Those two enumerated processes exist because the President and Justices are constitutional officers. Their removal mechanisms were written directly into the Constitution itself, so no future Congress could weaken them by ordinary statute. Statutory officers such as the KEB exist because of Congress, and Congress may repeal the existence of such offices. It would be an absurd constitutional order in which Congress lacks the power to prescribe a removal process for an office it can abolish outright.
The Kramerian Election Bureau (KEB) was established by the Republic Electoral Act of March 2026(REA) and was ratified that same month. That law provides for 4 Directors of the KEB nominated by the President and confirmed by Congress(See 6 K.C.C. §101.2). On June 13th, Petitioner, Preston, filed to challenge 101.2(b) as unconstitutional on the ground that it exceeded Congress’s enumerated authority under Article 27. The Republic of Krameria, Respondent, moved for summary judgment in concurrence with Petitioner.
Amicus Curiae, Foog, submitted a brief in opposition, arguing that the matter was unripe and that Congress’s power to create the KEB necessarily implied the power to regulate and remove its Directors under the necessary and proper clause of Article 27.
The matter was heard by Justice Roltech Freland. On June 15, 2026, Freland issued a ruling rejecting the ripeness argument and holding that 101.2(b) is unconstitutional. Freland’s ruling defined “impeachment” as criminal prosecution, based on Merriam-Webster’s definitions of “impeach” and “impeachment,” and held that criminal prosecutions levied by Congress are neither necessary nor proper, outside of the two instances enumerated in Article 27, those being to impeach a President or a Supreme Court Justice. Furthermore, Freland held that the Constitution alone vests Congress with its authority; the REA, as a “lower statute,” could not expand Congressional prosecution to encompass KEB directors. In short, Freland’s ruling defined impeachment as criminal prosecution, that Congress may remove KEB Directors through other constitutional methods, but that impeachment itself cannot be one of those methods, unless specifically enumerated. (See Preston).
Freland’s holding rests on the definition of impeachment, which is that it means “criminal prosecution.” The Constitution repeatedly and deliberately treats “offence,” “criminal prosecution,” and “impeachment” as distinct categories, and the structure of the Constitution as a whole refutes the equation Freland’s ruling draws between them
Article 27 grants Congress the power to “define and punish offences against the Republic” as its own enumerated power (See Const. Art. 27). This power appears in the same article as Congress’s impeachment authority, yet it is listed as a separate, distinct grant. If “offence,” as Freland’s definition holds, were synonymous with the criminal prosecution inherent in impeachment, then Congress’s power to “define and punish offences,” and its power to impeach, would just be a single redundant power. Every clause of Article 27 was drafted to grant Congress something distinct from every other clause. Were that not so, enumeration itself would serve no purpose. By defining impeachment through “offence,” Freland’s ruling interprets Article 27 as 2 grants of the same authority: one in prescribing criminal law in general, and once again specifically for impeachment. This reading cannot be correct. For a general power to punish offences against the republic, and another power to impeach, indicates that impeachment does something separately than punishing offences against the Republic.
Article 50 is the Constitution’s own definition for “criminal prosecution.” It specifies, in detail, what that term is under Kramerian law: The presumption of innocence, the right to competent counsel, the right to be informed of the charges, the right to a speedy and public trial, and the right to confront witnesses(See Const. Art. 50). Nowhere within Article 50 does the word “impeach” or “impeachment” appear. If impeachment was intended to constitute criminal prosecution, Article 50 would’ve been the natural place to state such. The omission of “impeachment” from Article 50, as clear as can be, shows that impeachment and criminal prosecution are separate things.