Can a Supreme Court Dominated by Duterte Appointees Render an Impartial Ruling on Sara’s Impeachment?

by Joey Salgado

Before the spotlight shines on the Senate and the senator-judges who will render judgement on the guilt or innocence of impeached Vice President Sara Duterte, all eyes will be on the Supreme Court as it tackles a petition to stop the impeachment trial.

How the Supreme Court decides on the petition filed by the Vice President will have profound consequences for the nation.

It will seal not only the fate of the Vice President but also the Dutertes as a political force. And for the Supreme Court, it will enshrine a lasting legacy. Future historians, sifting through records and attempting to put sense and structure to the state of the nation 30 or 50 years from now, would perhaps read the high tribunal’s decision and point to it as a pivotal moment, a singular act that shifted the ground and realigned our compass.

Impartial

In 2021, in the wake of an unprecedented number of threats and killings of lawyers, prosecutors, and judges, the Supreme Court issued a strongly-worded statement directed at unnamed individuals whose actions “perverse justice, defeat the rule of law, undermine the most basic of constitutional principles, and speculate on the worth of human lives.”

“To threaten our judges and our lawyers is no less than an assault on the judiciary,” the high tribunal said. “To assault the judiciary is to shake the very bedrock on which the rule of law stands. This cannot be allowed in a civilized society like ours.”

That statement, backed only by the Supreme Court’s moral force, was regarded by observers as a rare assertion of the independence and institutional authority of the judiciary at a period when co-equal branches of government were being coopted or coerced by a president with an authoritarian bent.
 
Today, the Supreme Court would need to again reassure the public that it will act as an impartial arbiter on a politically-charged constitutional question. This time, it may require more than a statement.

Imagine this plausible scenario: as one of the lawyers for the Vice President, former president Rodrigo Duterte attends the oral arguments, should one be called by the Supreme Court. His presence will carry more resonance and force than his legal knowledge or eloquence, of which he is, by consensus, deficient. He need not even speak, not even a fleeting glance at the assembled justices. The message would have been delivered.

Duterte will be sitting in front of 15 justices, 13 of whom he appointed during his term. With partisan lines already drawn on the impeachment issue, that image alone could already color the perception of impartiality.

The line of questioning, the demeanor, the tone of voice will be interpreted from partisan-colored glasses. And how the justices would vote would be correlated - sensationally by trolls, analysts, and media partisans on each side - with their relation to the appointing power, or their political or ideological inclinations.

In fairness, this would not be the first time that decisions of the high court on controversial issues will be parsed by biased minds. But the poisoned discourse, the clear demarcation of political loyalties, and the long-term implications for our constitutional democracy would make this case, to borrow a legal phrase and expand its definition, sui generis.

Loyal to the law and reason

Justices, after all, are not infallible. But the nature of their calling requires of them restraint and fortitude, their personal or political views yielding to the higher notions of law and the Constitution.

The impeachment of the Vice President is a political issue, and the court’s decision could either impose a burden or provide succor to future generations, strengthen democracy or weaken it. The justices, even if they see themselves above the fray, will be judged, unfairly in some view, as political players.

A passage from the book “Reforming the Judiciary,” written by former chief justice Artemio Panganiban, reminds us of the judiciary’s duty “to
decide cases according to law and reason.”

“It is true that litigations must be won or lost, not because of popular palatability or accommodation or friendship - not to mention pecuniary consideration - but because of reasoned arguments flowing from legal principles and precedents,” he wrote.

The reality may prove to be more complicated.

This article also appears in Rappler