Cayetano warns risk of ‘mistrial’ if voting rule changed mid-trial

MANILA, Philippines — Amid discussions of changing the voting threshold needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte in her impeachment, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano warned that changing a ruling in the middle of a trial could lead to a mistrial.

Cayetano, in a Facebook livestream, stressed that he would not want to start from scratch after 26 days of the trial had already passed should proceedings be deemed unfair.

“I don’t want to have a mistrial. I don’t want all the work that has been done in this trial to go to waste,” the senator expressed.

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READ: Ex-SC justices: Changing voting base mid-trial is not due process violation

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He added: “Fairness dictates that whatever your rules are at the beginning, those are your rules at the end.”

A mistrial could be declared when the fairness of a trial is compromised.

At the start of Duterte’s trial, Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero ruled that 16 votes are required to convict the vice president, following the “two-thirds of all senators” ascribed in the 1987 Constitution.

But, with three senators not able to attend the trial from the beginning due to legal battles, Senator-judge Erwin Tulfo appealed to revisit the voting threshold.

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This led to the court’s invitation of three retired Supreme Court chief justices and one retired associate justice to guide the senator-judges’ decision on whether or not the vote requirement must be changed in lieu of the absences.

Retired Chief Justices Artemio Panganiban, and Reynato Puno, as well as retired Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna maintained that changing the vote rule in the middle of the trial would not violate Duterte’s due process.

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The three agreed that because the voting threshold would not be practiced until the final vote is made, the rulings of the impeachment court on the matter are procedural only. /das