Edit: By “overthrow” I mean an actual attempt to topple the government, not wandering around aimlessly in a building for 4 hours stealing furniture.
If you actually oppose power you would almost certainly be FBI’d long before you could ever get to a position where you could conceivably stage a coup.
Being barred from election is a very quaint punishment for leading a failed coup.
In my country, the constitution explicitly makes the monarch immune from any kind of criminal prosecution whatsoever. A still-valid part of the 17th century constitution for the then absolute monarchy excempts “princes of the blood” from being prosecuted before any court but the monarch personally, leading to such absurdities as the current heir apparent having received speeding tickets from his mom, the queen.
As for the actual day to day rulers, the elected politicians and government ministers, they are immune to criminal prosecution unless a majority in parliament decides to allow the prosecution. If government ministers are too be made responsible for anything they do as ministers, this has to happen before a special court of impeachment staffed by political appointees and charges can only be raised by a majority in parliament. As a result, only two ministers has been brought to justice on this side of WWII. Instead, an absurd system of “not even slaps on the wrist” are used to “punish” crimes committed in office. This “punishment” is called a “nose” and literally consists of nothing more than a parliamentary committee passing a resolution to “raise critique” of a minister. The media treats this parish of accountability as big as really big and important news.
But yeah, the rulers of BadCountry™ are not accountable before the law and I should be very concerned about this.
