THE Supreme Court still has the final say on the legality of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s arrest for alleged electoral sabotage.

Court Administrator and spokesman Jose Midas Marquez stressed the issue on the legality of the proceedings conducted by the joint Department of Justice and Commission on Elections panel that led to the filing of the electoral sabotage case against Mrs. Arroyo has yet to be resolved by the SC.

Meanwhile, the camp of Mrs. Arroyo is expected to question before the SC today the filing of electoral sabotage charges and the issuance of the arrest warrant by the Pasay RTC.

Arroyo lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said they will also file a supplemental petition for the issuance of a temporary restraining order to suspend the proceedings pertaining to the charges filed against Mrs. Arroyo as he maintained that the filing of the case was railroaded to render moot the resolution of the High Court lifting the travel ban on the Arroyos.

Former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos had separately filed a petition before the SC questioning the legality of the DOJ-Comelec joint panel to conduct preliminary investigation into the electoral sabotage charges against them.

The same panel probed Mrs. Arroyo and recommended the filing of charges against her.

Mr. Arroyo described the panel as “a kangaroo court designed with the sole purpose of persecuting the former first gentleman and his ailing wife.”

He added that the order creating the joint panel should be declared null and void considering that Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. had acted as lawyers for Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, one of the complainants in the electoral fraud case against the Arroyos, in his election protest.

On the other hand, Abalos claimed that DOJ-Comelec Order No. 001-2011, creating the joint panels, violates his  constitutional right to equal protection of the law since the panels are serving functions of law enforcement, prosecutor, and judge at the same time.

Marquez said both petitions have been consolidated by the Court and expected to be tackled soon.

He explained if the Court rules in the petitoners’ favor, then the proceedings as well as its recommendations which became the basis of the Comelec in filing the electoral sabotage complaint before the RTC “may be declared void ab initio.”

“If that panel is adjudged as unconstitutional then of course all the proceedings conducted by that panel would have to be nullified, but again we have to wait for the decision of the Court,” Marquez said.