> It's not putting them above a constitution. There is a process in place to resolve constitutional issues. In this case it worked perfectly.

If transient violations that might take many years to resolve, and often present a slippery slope, do not face any censure, then they are practically above the constitution, even if there is a theoretical process.

While you point out that it worked in this case, that is nothing but an anecdote. I could equally list many cases where the exact opposite is the case. Consider for example the difficulty faced in bringing security policies before the courts in the U.S., due to the government claiming that the very discussion of the details of the implementations of these policies would harm national security.

> Punishing people merely for passing a law would itself be unconstitutional. There is no enumerated punishment nor is there any reasonable way to assert culpability.

I'm sorry if I was unclear, but I tried to address both of these points in my first reply. Let me try again to put it more clearly.

First, they should lose their office for abusing its privileges. This has nothing to do with the fact that they violated, or worked against the constitution specifically, but that they violated the oaths of their offices, which happen to preclude that.

Secondly, the punishment does not require newly introduced 'ex post facto' laws, as you seem to be implying, but should be in keeping with the facilitation of the violation of actual existing laws, which prevented the unconstitutional actions from taken place before the new laws were passed.

In other words, a politician that facilitates a law that unconstitutionally provides exceptions to previous existing laws, should be liable as an accessory to the crimes specified by that pre-existing law.

As far as determing their complicity is concerned, I believe that the fact that most everything is on record makes that fairly trivial.