Unanswered legal questions

If we have to move forward but continue the search for truth in the current political crisis, the Supreme Court (SC) should take cognizance of, and give due course to the pending petitions filed before it questioning the Lower House’s action on the report of its justice committee. A definitive ruling on the issues raised therein would certainly go a long way in preventing a repetition of the tumultuous process that occurred during the last impeachment hearing that was characterized by sharp differences of opinion on apparently clear and simple rules. Had there been an SC decision on the Constitutional issues that came up during the heated debates in the justice committee hearings, no boisterous walkout would have occurred and the majority ruling in the committee hearing and the plenary session may have been different or less controversial. Taking cognizance of the petition does not mean judicial supremacy over the legislature but merely upholding the sovereignty of our Charter. The question to be resolved may have arisen in a process that is essentially political but they are not purely political questions as they involve possible breaches of the Constitution that are within the SC’s competence and jurisdiction to look into.

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. dean emeritus of the Ateneo University College of Law and noted constitutionalist describes an impeachment process as 90 percent political and 10 percent legal. The legal portion of said process consists precisely of the issues raised by the pending petitions in the SC that are now ripe for adjudication after the Lower House killed the impeachment proceedings. A motion for reconsideration is no longer necessary for their ripening since such motion is only available to the very party whose action is being questioned and not to the party questioning it.

The first legal issue involves the meaning of the phrase "verified complaint" used in Section 3 (2) of the Article XI of the Constitution which states that "a verified complaint for impeachment may be filed by any member of the House of Representatives or any citizen upon a resolution of endorsement by any Member thereof". This issue came up after the justice committee considered the original Lozano complaint containing only a "Jurat" rather than a "Verification", as sufficient in form so as to preclude consideration of all the other impeachment complaints particularly the Amended one signed by 49 Congressmen. It became an issue because Jurat is not strictly speaking the same as verification. "Jurat" is the certificate of the officer or person before whom the complaint was sworn to. Verification, on the other hand is the sworn confirmation by the complainant of the correctness, truth or authenticity of the complaint. The first is made by the official administering the oath, the second, by the complainant making the oath. Here, Lozano did not expressly and categorically state that he personally prepared the complaint and that all the allegations therein are true and correct according to his own personal knowledge and information, yet the committee apparently relaxed the rule and still found his complaint sufficient in form.

The committee’s laxity in interpreting the rules on sufficiency in form is exactly the opposite of its rigidity in interpreting Section 3 (5) regarding when an impeachment proceeding is "initiated" so as to bar the initiation of another impeachment proceeding within one year. In the Francisco, Jr. case (415 SCRA 169), the SC said that initiation takes place by the act of filing and referral or endorsement of the impeachment complaint to the House committee on justice, or by filing by at least one third of the members of the House. In this case, three impeachment complaints were filed on different dates: the original Lozano complaint on June 28, 2005; the Lopez complaint on July 04, 2005 and the Amended Lozano Complaint on July 25, 2005. But they were referred to the justice committee on the same date, July 26, 2005, the first two at 4:20 p.m. and the Amended Complaint at 4:30 p.m. Instead of considering the three complaints together as they were referred on the same day, the justice committee ruled that, with the filing of the Lozano complaint, the impeachment proceeding has been "initiated" as to bar the other complaints from being considered within the period of one year. This is another issue that cries for clarification as it gave more importance to the filing than the referral or endorsement to the justice committee in determining when an impeachment proceeding is deemed "initiated" for purposes of applying the one year bar rule. Apparently the committee deviated from the Francisco ruling.

The third issue pertains to the admissibility of wiretapped conversations. The justice committee allegedly junked the Lozano complaint for insufficiency in substance because its main evidence is the Garci tape which it declared as inadmissible in an impeachment proceeding. Assuming that said tape is illegally obtained the committee ruling still raises another legal issue considering that the Anti-Wire Tapping Act itself does not mention impeachment as one of the proceedings where illegally obtained tapes are inadmissible.

These are vital issues that cry for an answer from the SC. A ruling on them would greatly help, as the search for truth continues not only in the present but also in future controversies.

* * *

E-mail at: [email protected]