‘Someone is impeached for one reason alone — for the good of the country and the civil society.’
THE impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona is not really about making him accountable for his partiality and bias for Gloria Arroyo, acceptance of his “midnight” appointment, and of late, amassing ill-gotten wealth consisting of more than P200 million in various real estate properties. It is about reforming the judiciary. Someone is impeached for one reason alone — for the good of the country and the civil society.
The impeachment complaint lists eight articles detailing his transgressions of the Constitution and even the Supreme Court’s own rules. But, what really maters is that this Chief Justice may well represent what is terribly, horribly wrong with the Philippine judiciary.
There are enough horror stories of prosecutors, judges and even justices on the take. Our problem of what Erap called “hoodlums in robes” is a real—and continuing—one, and if there are those who now staunchly defend Corona, it must be asked whether those who do so count themselves as pert of the solution or part of the problem.
Do those who insist on “judicial independence” mean the freedom of judges and justices to sell their decisions to whoever is buying? Why would it be wrong to bring down a Chief Justice who has been found wanting?
And, there is no “dictatorship” when the government institutes reforms for the good of society. Every president has a mandate to institute thorough reforms in the judiciary, including making judges and justices accountable for accepting bribes for doing favors through their decisions to fiends, former bosses and political patrons,
Reforming the judiciary is imperative, as even the World Bank would attest.
The World Bank has found anomalies in the Supreme Court’s implementation of the $21.9 million Judicial Reform Support Project, aimed at enhancing the Judiciary’s efficiency and integrity. This is a commitment of the WB made during the tenure of Chief Justice Hilarion Davide Jr.
The WB describes as “unsatisfactory” the progress made by the Supreme Court since mid-2010 in attaining the project development objective. The unsatisfactory performance is directly attributable to Renato Corona since he assumed the position of Chief Justice in 2010. Chief Justices Davide, Aretemio Panganiban, and Reynato Puno were obviously satisfactory for the WB. Only Corona has been found wanting.
According to the World Bank, the funds that the Bank provided the Supreme Court were mismanaged and disbursed in a manner contrary to the agreement between the two institutions. If the Corona-led Supreme Court is, as reported by the WB, misusing the funds of the World Bank for its own purposes (and is billing the country over $200,000 for these misused funds), how likely is it that the SC, under Corona, may be dipping its fingers in other foreign-funded projects and other judiciary funds?
And if the fund misuse is happening at the highest levels of the Judiciary, isn’t is also likely that corruption is taking place, even as you read this, in the lower levels — from the trial courts up to the appellate courts?
The “hoodlums in robes” must be exposed and must themselves face prosecution and sent to jail if found guilty. This is how we can bring back the credibility of our system of justice.
The Corona impeachment trial is not just about making the Chief Justice accountable to the people. It is also about making the Judiciary truly credible and respected, rather than criticized and reviled, as a co-equal branch of government. The Corona impeachment is about getting rid of corruption and the judiciary is the first place to do just that.
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Senator Pia Cayetano wrote a piece about what an impeachment is all about. She cites Charles Black Jr., Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale Law School and adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. Black says that the fact that the senators take a separate oath emphasizes that the Senate “whether for this occasion you call it a ‘judicial’ body or not — is taking on quite a different role from its normal legislative one.
“The fact that the Senate is to ‘try’ all impeachments, not simply vote on them, implies that it takes on the nature of a judicial trial, because the word to ‘try’ is a word used almost invariably in regard to judicial trials.”
The Senator continues: “Thus, the all-important question of the impartiality of the judges arise. As noted by Black, and as I am sure, many are also aware, ‘senators find themselves either definitely friendly or definitely inimical to the [accused]. In an ordinary judicial trial, person in such a position would of course be disqualified to act, whether as judges or as jurors.’”
Sen. Pia quotes Black further:
“It cannot have been the intention of the Framers that this rule apply in impeachments, for its application would be absurd; a great many senators would inevitably be disqualified by it, and it might easily happen that trial would be by a quite small remnant of the Senate. The remedy has to be in the conscience of each senator, who ought to realize the danger and try as far as possible to divest himself of all prejudice.”
The Senator concludes: “We all have a role to perform. If we do it well, we can reach a different level of political maturity and democracy. And in the process, strengthen our institutions, which will make for a stronger nation.”
I believe that, unlike a judicial trial where the main purpose is to sift the evidence to establish guilt or innocence, an impeachment has an altogether different purpose. An impeachment decides what is best for the country — whether the person being impeached should continue in the service of the country and the people or will we all be better off without the services of the one being impeached.
It’s really that simple!
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