THE Senate impeachment court has allowed bank officials to testify on certain bank accounts of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona.  He and a bank have gone to the Supreme Court to stop the disclosures, citing possible violations of laws governing the secrecy of bank accounts to protect the public.

The question now is, will the Supreme Court intervene in the ongoing impeachment trial?

With lawyers and public watchdogs monitoring the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, the 23 senator-judges are under a high-powered microscope for the slightest signs of bias and impartiality, which they have sworn to uphold. 

Impartial?

That is the situation the Senate may soon find itself in  unless the senator-judges are able to restrain their enthusiasm.

That is the situation the Supreme Court already finds itself in  and it must find a creative solution to the dilemma without provoking a constitutional crisis.

In a similar situation much earlier in the trial, the Senate, denied the motion of Chief Justice Corona’s lawyers for a preliminary hearing to enable him to show (1) that the impeachment complaint filed by the House of Representatives was not properly “verified” (a constitutional requirement with a strict legal definition), and (2) that the House denied him “due process” (also a constitutional requirement with well-understood meaning, at least among lawyers) for filing the complaint without giving him prior notice and hearing, two requirements to fulfil  due process.

Intervene?

Similarly, at least five petitions (not including Corona) have been filed before the Supreme Court alleging essentially the same things.

Now, may the Supreme Court reverse the impeachment court’s ruling and uphold the petitioners? Stated another way for clarity, does the Supreme Court have constitutional authority to reverse rulings of the impeachment court?

Senate President Juan Pomce Enrile, presiding at the trial, has stated that while the Senate has supreme authority to decide impeachment cases, the litigants are well within their rights to go to the Supreme Court to appeal incidental rulings prior to final judgment which is not appealable

In a well-composed and reasoned opening statement,   Enrile asserted in the strongest words possible that the Senate was vested with the sole power to conduct an impeachment trial.  The Constitution clearly grants the Senate “the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment,” he said.

Checks and balances

In constitutional law, there is a basic doctrine that the three great branches of government are supreme in their own spheres and are co-equal with one another.  Under a corollary doctrine called the system of checks and balances, each branch is given authority to check the others to prevent the abuse and misuse of their power.

As part of this complex system of checks and balances, the power to impeach the highest executive and judicial officials is granted “exclusively” to the House, while the power to try and decide is given “solely” in the Senate.

A parallel question in the Supreme Court pleadings is, may impeached officials, especially Supreme Court justices, be allowed to reverse impeachment actions undertaken by Congress against them?   Common sense would seem to say that that would be self-serving. 

Grave abuse of discretion?

As part of the system of checks and balances, the entire judiciary (not just the Supreme Court) is constitutionally granted “the duty¡ 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 government,” according to the Constitution.

The controlling word here is “duty,” not “power.” A power can be relinquished, but a duty “cannot under any circumstance be evaded,” in the words of Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion.

The Constitution does not define the meaning of grave abuse of discretion except that (1) the abuse must be “grave,” and (2) must amount to “lack or excess of jurisdiction.” But jurisprudence has  defined grave abuse of discretion as “arbitrary, whimsical, capricious or despotic exercise of judgment¡ arising from passion or personal hostility.”

Jurisprudence

In two recent impeachment cases, those of Chief Justice Hilario Davide and Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, the Supreme Court did in fact step in, although in the early stages of impeachment.  In the Davide case, the House of Representatives submitted to the ruling of the Court.  In the Gutierrez case, the issue was mooted by her resignation.

In the current case, Senator Enrile, speaking for the impeachment court, denied the Corona motion on the ground that the impeachment complaint appears to have complied with the  constitutional requirements: “In case the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed.”

Without presuming to make a decision for the Supreme Court,  it seems to me that the Court may intervene in the Corona impeachment trial if it finds the House or the Senate to have committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. Simply put, Did the Senate act “arbitrarily, whimsically, capriciously and despotically”?

The senators are lucky to have Senate President Enrile to guide them in navigating the uncharted waters of impeachment without sinking the ship on the treacherous reefs of partisan politics.