Supreme Court challenge to lower impeachment threshold a ‘stretch’ – prosecutor

Metro Manila, Philippines – A Supreme Court challenge to the Senate Impeachment Court decision on who among the senator-judges can deliver a verdict on Vice President Sara Duterte would be difficult to sustain, House prosecutor Keith Flores said.

Flores said the Senate sought guidance from former Supreme Court justices before ruling that the two-thirds requirement under the Constitution should be based on the number of senator-judges capable of participating in the proceedings.

“To say that there is grave abuse of discretion here is a bit of a stretch,” Flores said in an interview on ‘The Newsmaker’ on NewsWatch Plus.

The impeachment court ruling effectively reduced the current threshold for convicting or acquitting Duterte from 16 to 14 votes based on 20 senator-judges.

Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta have been detained on separate plunder charges, Senator Bato dela Rosa is hiding from an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, while Senator Loren Legaerda is on medical leave abroad.

Duterte’s defense raised the possibility of challenging the ruling in the Supreme Court, arguing that it involved an interpretation of the Constitution.

Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte, the vice president’s brother, also described the issue as a constitutional question rather than a matter of parliamentary arithmetic.

Flores acknowledged that the high court could intervene if the Senate acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.

He said, however, that establishing grave abuse would be difficult because the impeachment court consulted retired chief justices and an associate justice on the issue

“The senator-judges, acting as an impeachment court, sought guidance,” Flores said. “And not just guidance from the prosecution or the defense. They sought guidance from former chief justices.”

He said the Constitution grants the Senate the sole authority to try and decide impeachment cases.

The authority includes adopting its own procedural rules without being strictly bound by the regular rules governing court proceedings, he said.

“In my opinion, the Senate was well within its constitutional authority when it acted that way,” Flores said.

The impeachment court said its interpretation would apply only to Duterte’s case because of the particular circumstances.

Flores said the ruling would not bind future senates, which may adopt a different interpretation depending on their membership and the circumstances of another impeachment case.