Guilty, yes; but reviewable by the Court?
The Senate voted 20-3 declaring Chief Justice Renato Corona guilty of the charges under Article II of the articles of impeachment. The prosecution’s evidence did not convict him; Corona’s own admission did.
Essentially the Chief Justice was declared guilty of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust because of his failure to make the constitutionally required declaration of assets, liabilities and net worth. He failed to declare P80 million and $2.4 million. And he admitted this in open court.
He justified his failure to declare P80 million in bank deposits on the ground that they were mixed accounts belonging to his children and the Basa-Guidote Enterprises Inc. The Senate did not accept this explanation saying that, assuming they were indeed mixed accounts, since they were in his name he should have declared them as a mix of assets and liabilities.
Corona justified his failure to declare his dollar accounts on the ground that they were absolutely confidential under the Foreign Currency Deposits Act. The Senate did not accept his interpretation of the meaning of confidentiality under the law, explaining that the command of confidentiality was directed not against the depositor but against persons, official or otherwise, who might wish to look into his account.
Considering Corona’s admission, did he commit impeachable offenses? Impeachable offenses are those offenses which are of the same gravity as the paradigmatic impeachable offenses of treason and bribery. The issue then became a matter of comparing the gravity of the offenses. How do you measure the gravity of offenses?
One way of measuring this is through the comparison of the penalty for a defective statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) and treason. But that is not the yardstick the Senate used. The Senate measured the gravity of his guilt by considering the exalted position he occupied and what was expected of him under the Constitution: “A Member of the judiciary must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence.” Twenty senators found him sadly wanting in these and that therefore he was not fit to continue in the exalted office.
Is this manner of measurement legal? Not strictly, perhaps, but as I have often repeated, impeachment is not purely a legal process but also a policymaking process. The senators judged that it was better for the nation that Corona should go.
Having said all that, as some are asking, may the Supreme Court review the judgment of the Senate?
This is a novel question. But since it is being asked, answers have to be sought. What does the Constitution say?
We have to begin with the constitutional provision which says that “The Senate shall be the sole judge to try and decide all cases of impeachment.” How absolute is the exclusivity of the power of the Senate?
It might be noted that the power of the electoral tribunals is couched also in exclusive terms: “The Senate and the House of Representatives shall each have an Electoral Tribunal which shall be the sole judge of all contests, relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of their Members.” Nevertheless the Supreme Court reviewed and invalidated a final vote tally made by an electoral tribunal, which the Court found to have been unsupported by evidence. How did the Philippine Court arrive at its conclusion?
The answer of the Court to that question was Article VIII, Section 1, a new provision in the 1987 Constitution, which has been accepted as an expansion of the powers of the Supreme Court. This provision says that “Judicial power includes the duty of courts of justice . . . to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.”
Moreover, Section 5 of the same Article VIII says that the Supreme Court has the power to “Exercise original jurisdiction over . . . petitions for certiorari, prohibition, mandamus, quo warranto, and habeas corpus.” Certiorari is precisely for handling cases of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. This was the basis for the Supreme Court’s review of a number of decisions of the electoral tribunal. The question now is whether the Court will apply this same provision to decisions of the Senate in an impeachment.
In trying to discern which direction the Court might go in the impeachment case, I am reminded of what one writer said of the US Supreme Court:
“The reason underlying this difficulty is all too well known: the Supreme Court is not simply a Court; it is an important part of the American political process. Because the key phrases of the Constitution have such grand ambiguities, the Court has wide discretion in passing on matters with a constitutional dimension, and because such matters are likely to concern and affect the larger issues of American life, the Court, in passing on them, exercises great political power.
“The Court thus has a hybrid role . . . The special burden of the Court, then, is to exercise great political powers while still acting like a court, or if we prefer, to exercise judicial powers over a wide domain while remaining realistic, and alert as to the political significance of what it is doing.”
Indeed, there is grand ambiguity in the apparent conflict between the expanded power of the Supreme Court in Article VIII, Section 1 and the exclusive power of the Senate in Article XI, Section 3(6). The Court should resolve this ambiguity in a manner that will best serve the nation. I do not believe that it would be in the best interest of the nation for the Supreme Court to initiate a head-on collision with the Senate.
