Can impeachment court decisions be appealed to SC?

Former Chief Justices Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno, and retired Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna, appearing as amici curiae, advised the impeachment court on the conviction threshold debate whether the vote threshold should be based on the full membership of 24 senators or only those able to participate, on September 16, 2026.

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Former associate justice Azcuna says the Supreme Court may reverse the Senate's ruling on the conviction threshold, but retired chief justice Panganiban says the High Court should not intervene

AT A GLANCE

• The impeachment court sought advice from former justices regarding the conviction threshold and the potential for Supreme Court intervention in the Senate's decisions.
• Retired justices indicated that while the Senate has the authority to decide impeachment cases, the Supreme Court can review decisions if there is grave abuse of discretion or violation of due process.
• The ongoing debate about the two-thirds vote requirement for conviction may lead to judicial challenges, especially if the threshold is altered, with Vice President Duterte's legal team likely to pursue judicial relief.

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When the impeachment court invited former magistrates to seek their advice, not only did senators get the legal luminaries’ take on the conviction threshold debate, but also asked them on whether the path the Senate takes can be appealed before the Supreme Court.

Nothing stops Vice President Sara Duterte — and also her critics — from pursuing a path to judicial relief should the impeachment court’s decisions favor their foes, but the former SC justices’ answers on Wednesday, September 16, offered insights on how contentious this issue can be.

Retired associate justice Adolfo Azcuna’s answer was straightforward: only the SC has the final say on interpretation of constitutional boundaries. He believes the High Court can step in and reverse a Senate impeachment court ruling, should it decide to adjust the minimum number needed to convict the Vice President.

“I think there may be grounds for intervention by the Supreme Court if someone who remains a senator, despite not participating in the trial for one reason or another, is excluded from the denominator when determining the required vote,” Azcuna told the impeachment court.

The issue at hand concerns the interpretation of Article 11, Section 3(6) of the Constitution, which states: “No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members of the Senate.”

Should “all” in that constitutional provision refer to 24 — the total composition of the Senate — when there are at least four absentee senators? Senators Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada are in jail due to plunder charges; Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa is in hiding in connection with his International Criminal Court drug war case; and Senator Loren Legarda has been on medical leave.

Retired SC chief justices Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno said that as a general rule, the Senate exercises judicial power as the sole body with the power to try and decide impeachment cases. As the proceedings are sui generis (a class of its own), its decisions settle what are largely political questions.

However, there are exceptions. They said judicial review can be made by the High Court when the impeachment court commits grave abuse of discretion or violates a party’s right to due process.

“If the Senate commits grave abuse of discretion, then the Supreme Court will have to take action. Not because the Supreme Court is higher than the Senate, but because it is just exercising a power lodged in it by the Constitution,” Panganiban said.

But is there grave abuse of discretion?

Some senator-judges, in their interjections, appeared to anticipate arguments of grave abuse of discretion that could be raised before the SC in the future.

Senator Kiko Pangilinan asked the former justices whether voting to change the basis for the two-thirds threshold would violate Duterte’s right to due process.

“Commendably, you are doing this meeting so that you cannot be accused of grave abuse of discretion if it ever comes down to that,” Panganiban said. “I think you have been very prudent.”

Panganiban, responding to another question by Senator Ping Lacson, said he believed that the SC should not interfere on the conviction threshold issue.

“Were you capricious? Were you whimsical? Were you arbitrary in making your decision? If you are debating about it, and in fact, you called the sweethearts of the Supreme Court to help you with this short of telling you what the decision should be… Supreme Court should not intervene,” Panganiban said.

What Duterte may do

The amici curiae was conducted after Senator Erwin Tulfo pushed to revisit presiding officer Senator Chiz Escudero’s initial decision on the conviction threshold. At the start of the trial in July, he kept the number at 16 votes, citing a 2000 SC ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the Senate’s ratification of the Visiting Forces Agreement. Bayan v Zamora kept the two-thirds threshold requirement in treaty ratifications at 16 votes despite the Senate lacking one member.

On Wednesday, Escudero said he issued his ruling in July in hopes that someone would raise the issue before the SC for a final determination early on.

He explained that he wanted to prevent a scenario where the impeachment court’s eventual decision on whether to convict or acquit the Vice President will be undermined by an unresolved debate on the conviction threshold.

Wednesday’s amici curiae makes it appear that prosecutors may not necessarily need 16 votes to win the case. Only Azcuna stuck with the 16-vote-threshold view, while Panganiban, Puno, and former chief justice Hilario Davide Jr., through a written position, shied away from a literal interpretation of the 1987 Constitution.

If Escudero — or the impeachment court — is swayed into lowering the threshold, expect the Vice President to knock on the SC’s doors. Her legal team has a penchant for seeking judicial relief every step of the way in the impeachment process, even when it was still in the early stages in the House of Representatives.

In fact, when when Escudero announced the amici curiae on September 8, the Duterte camp made sure to manifest that the defense team’s participation would be made ad cautelam, or strictly out of abundant caution. The court is slated to make a decision after the oral arguments on September 23.

“Such decision is without prejudice to any legal remedies that any of the parties may take,” defense lawyer Michael Poa manifested on September 8. – Rappler.com