RETIRED Supreme Court associate justice Adolf Azcuna yesterday said holding the highest officials of the land accountable will now be nearly impossible after the tribunal added due process requirements for impeachment.
He was referring to the SC ruling last Friday declaring the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte unconstitutional for violating the one-year ban of the 1987 Constitution in the filing of the complaint.
The House has said it would file an appeal because of “factual errors” in the ruling.
Retired senior associate Justice Antonio Carpio said the SC might yet reverse its controversial ruling, adding he believes it was based on factual errors.
“I am optimistic that the Supreme Court will decide correctly and they will consider very seriously the motion for reconsideration because there was really a factual mistake,” Carpio said at a forum.
Azcuna, who was one of the framers of the Constitution and drafted Article XI on “Accountability of Public Officers,” said the “principal casualty of the Supreme Court decision applying new rules on impeachment is the principle of accountability.”
“The principal mechanism adopted by Article XI of the Constitution to enforce accountability of the highest officials is impeachment. This is a sui generis procedure so that normal requirements of notice and due process are subordinated to the overarching demand for accountability,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.
He said the SC’s new definition of “initiate,” contrary to its own prevailing definition, “would not only be unfair if applied retroactively, but would even as applied prospectively, unduly constrain the House in the exercise of its exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment.
Azcuna said the 1986 Constitutional Commission deliberately made it easier to impeach officials when it required only a one-third vote in the House of Representatives to impeach officials, and a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict.”
He emphasized that while the Constitution provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it does not apply in impeachment cases.
“Someone being impeached does not stand to be deprived of life, nor of liberty, much less of property. So what is the constitutional basis for insisting on applying due process rules an all phases of impeachment? None,” he said.
“In short, the intent of the present Constitution is to make accountability easier to enforce,” he added.
If not reconsidered, Azcuna said, the SC ruling penned by Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen “would add a plethora of requirements ranging from prior notice and hearing, to attaching the evidence, to requiring proof that the representatives read and understood the charges and the supporting evidence.”
“All these will effectively render it almost impossible to carry out the intended accountability procedure. Furthermore, if allowed to stand, it will to my mind effectively amend — and, God forbid, derail — the Constitution which even the Supreme Court has no power to do,” he said.
CONSTITUENT POWERS
Azcuna also stressed that the powers granted the House to initiate all cases of impeachment and the Senate to try and decide on the cases are called “constituent powers,” that is, sovereign powers specifically assigned and lodged by the Constitution to a specific and particular organ or body of government.
He said the cardinal rule in regard to constituent powers is that “where the Constitution puts it, there it should lie.”
He said the SC cannot be the one to craft rules to enforce Article XI of the Constitution.
“The reason for this is because the Supreme Court members are themselves impeachable officials. So they cannot be the ones to define the rules for their own possible impeachment. This would go against the very heart of due process — No one can be the judge in one’s own case,” he said.
Last month, Azcuna said it would be a grave violation of the Constitution if the Senate of the 19th Congress dismissed the impeachment case without holding a trial.
REVERSAL
Carpio and 1986 Constitutional Commission member Christian Monsod said the SC should reverse its decision since no proceeding had been initiated previously.
Carpio said the rule should not apply to the fourth impeachment complaint that the House transmitted to the Senate for trial in February.
Three complaints filed in December 2024 were archived.
“Obviously the one-year-bar rule cannot apply to the fourth complaint, the fourth complaint was filed on time. So it’s a very basic error there and I think it deserves to be reconsidered by the Supreme Court,” Carpio said at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.
Carpio and Monsod said the SC ruling should apply in future impeachment cases and not applied retroactively to cover Duterte’s impeachment case.
Monsod stressed that impeachable officials like Duterte would be heard at the Senate and not at the House. This after the SC in its ruling held that the House violated Duterte’s right to due process since her side was not heard before impeaching her and transmitting the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate for trial.
“That is not contemplated by the Constitution; the due process is observed in the hearings of the Senate not in the meeting,” he said.
‘GREEDY LEADERS’
Duterte yesterday hit the country’s “greedy” leaders.
“Our country deserves better, and we shall stand tall, strong, and resilient against leaders whose greed will bring down our homeland. We deserve better,” Duterte said in a statement days after the ruling. She did not elaborate.
Duterte thanked members of her defense Team “for taking on my case, even when no one else was willing to stand by me,” and other petitioners in the case “for having the conviction to challenge the abuses of the House of Representatives.”
“To those whose voices rang out in dissent against persecution — thank you. Your courage to speak the truth has been a source of strength,” she said. “And to the parents, children, and silent supporters who offered their prayers for justice — thank you. Your quiet faith lifts me up.”
Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri said he respects the opinion of some of his colleagues who are pushing for a resolution asking the SC to reconsider its decision but they should follow the ruling.
“But I firmly maintain my position that we must comply immediately with the Supreme Court’s decision as it is clearly stated to be ‘immediately executory.’ The ruling is final and binding and in a constitutional democracy, that should mean what it says,” Zubiri said in a statement.
Meanwhile, three lawyers asked the SC to hold Presidential Adviser on Poverty Alleviation Larry Gadon, a party-list representative, and a professor-journalist in indirect contempt of court for their alleged malicious public comments on the ruling.
Lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said Gadon should be held in contempt for his “highly offensive and outrageous public remarks” against the magistrates by describing them as “tuta ng mga Duterte” (lapdogs of the Dutertes).
Lawyers Mark Kristopher Tolentino and Rolex Suplico asked the SC to cite for indirect contempt Akbayan party-list Rep. Percy Cendaña and professor Richard Heydarian.
“This petition is being pursued in response to their public, malicious, and contemptuous statements that undermine the Supreme Court calling it the `Supreme Coddler’ of Vice President Sara Duterte and questioning the integrity of the Justices by labeling them as political appointees beholden to former President Duterte,” the petition said. – With Wendell Vigilia and Raymond Africa
