By Ade S. Fajardo
The Supreme Court had stopped an impeachment only two times before the currently sizzling case of Sara Duterte.
In 2003, it declared some provisions of the House of Representatives rules on impeachment unconstitutional, and halted the hearings against former Chief Justice Hilario Davide.
A status quo ante order was issued while the Supreme Court was studying the merits of the petition filed against the House.
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The Court also issued a status quo ante order in the 2010 case of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.
Later it decided that the House had the power to proceed against the Ombudsman, and allowed the Senate’s reception of the articles of impeachment. Gutierrez resigned before trial could start.
In both cases, the Supreme Court intervened when the impeachment complaint had yet to reach the Senate impeachment court.
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The Sara Duterte case is remarkable because this is the first time that the Supreme Court is stopping an impeachment after the Senate had assumed jurisdiction by formally convening as an impeachment court.
In fact, the Vice President has been summoned and has already filed her answer to the articles of impeachment. The House prosecutors have accordingly replied to the VP’s answer.
The VP’s answer, as we know, does not respond to the accusations against her, but raises the same procedural objections that the Supreme Court has now resolved in her favor.
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The VP has thus acknowledged the impeachment court’s power to rule or decide on those issues. That power flows from the Constitution, which provides that “the Senate has the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment.”
Her recourse in the impeachment court is the VP’s speedy and adequate remedy under the law. This accords her due process of law. The Supreme Court could have exercised “judicial restraint,” and allowed the Senate to assume its exclusive jurisdiction that is clearly expressed in the Constitution.
The Court has held in many previous cases that if the record also presents some other ground upon which it may rest its judgment, that course will be adopted and the constitutional question “will be left for consideration until a case arises in which a decision upon such question will be unavoidable.”
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Judicial restraint translates to the Court allowing the impeachment court to take first crack of the central issue — whether the adoption of the fourth complaint violated the one-initiation per year rule.
It could have been openly debated and the public would have been apprised of the reason for its being. Senators could adjust to the popular pulse.
Impeachment has largely been a political exercise until the Sara Duterte case. Congressmen and Senators are not immune to public clamor.
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House Speaker Martin Romualdez said yesterday that while the Supreme Court may have closed a case, a cause can live on. The House has announced the filing of a motion for reconsideration.
Is the Senate jealous enough and do the same to protect its jurisdiction?/WDJ