Nothing final

Circumstances indicate the status of the Veep’s impeachment remains factually fluid. Making, therefore, conclusive political judgments about it is premature.

As such, avoiding false conclusions starts with the fact the High Tribunal’s decision cutting short the Veep’s impeachment trial this year isn’t final.

The tribunal’s contentious decision “is still subject to a motion for reconsideration or for clarification by the HoR (House of Representatives), if it so wants to file one,” said retired Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban last week.

What we, therefore, have is that what happens next in the Veep’s impeachment saga crucially depends on House members and their leaders making up their minds whether or not to appeal the decision, once they convene for the 20th Congress.

As I write this, Congress is yet to convene and there’s no word — outside of the House’s spokesperson’s initial general response that the impeachment process should not be derailed by legal technicalities — on what it wants to do.

Nonetheless, should the House go one way or the other it remains that they were given credible legal advice by retired Supreme Court justices on how to properly respond — which I believe likely sets in motion what immediately happens next.

On that point, the sitting SC justices should take note of this development, seriously note it and discuss thoroughly among themselves the legal concerns raised by the retired justices as these just might be forwarded to them by the House.

Anyway, retired Supreme Court justices airing legal concerns and advice is politically significant in itself.

More than the accessible views of our trusted renowned legal experts, whatever retired SC jurists say is generally more worthwhile as these allow us insights into the inner workings of the usually opaque High Tribunal.

Moreover, considering that the current SC is under political assault, addressing these concerns, or political compromises if you will, offered by the retired justices positions the High Court above the political noise.

(Of the political noise, these range from threatening the sitting SC justices with impeachment to the daring conjecture that the warring Marcos and Duterte camps are suing for peace.)

To wit, retired Justice Adolf S. Azcuna’s appeal for the SC “to apply the fairness principle” therefore merits serious consideration, especially in light of the common belief that the SC won’t change its mind when asked to reconsider major decisions.

Azcuna’s main point with his “fairness principle,” if I understand it correctly, is that the SC erred in crafting a new definition for the word “initiate” while the House all along was using the old SC definition of the word during its impeachment proceedings.

If the SC realizes Azcuna’s point, he says the SC can correct itself by applying what he calls the “Doctrine of Operative Facts” in a Supplemental Resolution.

“It (the SC) had applied (“operative facts”) before in similar cases, stating that where actions were taken and things done in reliance on its former and then prevailing definition (or in the absence of one), the action and things done will be treated as valid and the new definition will be applied prospectively, i.e., to future cases,” Azcuna said.

Meanwhile, Panganiban believes the SC decision was rushed, saying that if it were him, he would have issued a “Status Quo Ante Order requiring the parties to maintain the current situation, that is, for the Senate to stop any trial while the Court is deliberating on the petition.”

Agreeing to Panganiban’s point would essentially mean avoiding another polarizing and bruising political crisis: the senators debating whether or not to disregard the SC.