The process of impeachment recognizes a very fundamental problem in a democracy and provides a drastic relief. The problem is the adamant stand of a tenured but erring high public official to remain in his position in an important branch of government. There is resistance. The legal relief is a decree from the Senate removing him from his high position. He is likewise barred from ever holding any public office, no matter how insignificant. To the ousted, the emotional denoument is disgrace and humiliation. There can be no spin of a moral victory against partisan voting. It is simply total defeat.
What attracts people to the Corona impeachment is that the respondent is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a public official who is supposed to do justice but is accused of doing the opposite. Magistrates have traditionally been considered as learned people who should be regarded with high esteem. Unlike political officials, a Justice's performance of his official decision-making duties is cloaked in secrecy. Nevertheless, at least here in the Philippines, even the intellectual elite rarely criticize them as their reputation for eruditeness and honesty seem to precede them.
There is a tendency to treat these public officials as immune from criticisms and incrimination. Our laws even provide that, in the event a judge's decision turns out to have legally violated the constitutional rights of a citizen, he cannot be held liable for damages, unless his acts can be proven to be criminal in nature.
But Justices of the Supreme Court are still public officials who must be held accountable for their actions. In the United States, criticisms of a Justice's official views/decisions and even personal lives have been accepted as necessary. These magistrates have even humbly acknowledged such criticisms as important and have even reminded the citizenry of their essentiality.
The introspective words of then US Supreme Court Associate Justice, Mr. Justice Brewer (Government by Injunction, 15 Nat’l Corp. Rep. 848,849), show this:
It is a mistake to suppose that the Supreme Court is either honored or helped by being spoken of as beyond criticism. On the contrary, the life and character of its justices should be the objects of constant watchfulness by all, and its judgments subject to the freest criticism. The time is past in the history of the world when any living man or body of men can be set on a pedestal and decorated with a halo. True, many criticisms may be, like their authors, devoid of goood taste, but better all sorts of criticsm than no criticsm at all.The moving waters are full of life and health; only in the still waters is stagnation and death.
Prof. Allan Hutchinson, associate dean of York University's Osgoode Hall Law School said this about the Canadian Supreme Court and its Justices:
In a democracy, it is imperative that judicial performance is the subject of vigorous questioning. If Supreme Court judges are to have such enormous power in, and over, Canadian democracy, it is essential to debate robustly their decisions, their reasoning, and their very status. We should encourage, not disparage as "embarrassing" those who have the guts to check any possible usurpations of power.We need not agree with their particular criticisms, but we should not put the courts beyond the reach of debate or questioning.
In the ultimate analysis, this impeachment proceeding against Chief Justice Corona does not present to us a specially extraordinary case. The underlying principle is still basic. Public office is a public trust. Accordingly, "men and women in robes" must also always be open to scrutiny. They betray this sovereign trust, they forfeit their positions.
But even high officials deserve to be given due process of law. Was due process accorded to the Chief Justice in the determination of whether or not he was really impeachable? Are the issues to be resolved in this impeachment case purely legal or are they matters of policy? At the time judgment is to be made, should the Senator-Judges look at the evidence focusing on Chief Justice Corona alone like in an ordinary civil case? Or should the Senator-Judges focus on the Chief Justice in relation to the future of the very institution he leads, the Judiciary and more particularly the Supreme Court? At the end of the day, will the issue basically be: Is Chief Justice Corona still good for the Supreme Court? We will examine these questions in the next issue.
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