Odd cautelam

I have no idea why the self-proclaimed “legal luminaries” in the House Justice Committee — namely, the beauteous Gerbil Luistro and Leila de Lima and their ilk — have gotten their panties in a bunch over the Answer Ad Cautelam submitted by Vice President Sara Duterte in response to the impeachment complaints filed against her. They say that Sara’s Answer was a “non-answer,” that it was “weak,” a “general denial,” etc. etc.

The problem with those lawyers is that — having carved a career in politics early on — the closest they have come to the inside of a courtroom was probably when they asked to use the restroom. Thus, the public admission on their part of having committed either obstruction of justice or concubinage.

With such a lousy (and even highly questionable, constitutionally-speaking) series of impeachment complaints, they were lucky to have gotten an Answer at all. And that was only because the Veep, astute lawyer-politician that she is, wanted to deprive Malacañang’s lapdogs in the Justice Committee of the propaganda value that not responding would have afforded them.

And that, gentle reader, is why the Answer was suffixed with the Latin maxim “ad cautelam,” which means, in the legal lexicon, “for cautionary purposes.” Or, in simpler language, just in case.

By putting to the fore the obvious lack of ultimate facts to constitute impeachable offenses vis-à-vis the House rules, the Answer puts into focus the fact that the House Justice Committee is naught but a kangaroo court, obsessed not with accountability but political persecution.

The Answer, with its copious references to the landmark case of Duterte v. House of Representatives and that decision’s textually demonstrable doctrinal stress on due process, is thus — instead of playing into the hands of the said Committee — laying the groundwork for a future constitutional challenge. Not only on due process grounds again, but possibly — by pounding on the unfair treatment by the Committee of an almost simultaneous impeachment complaint against President Marcos — on the basis of the equal protection clause.

That is what may be called “planting the seeds” or “laying a legal McGuffin” --- take it from a guy who has won at least four leading cases in the Supreme Court.

As to the labelling of the statements in the Answer as “general denials” and therefore tantamount to no denial at all, the same reveals a lack of depth of understanding of what impeachment proceedings are all about.

While impeachment is sui generis (meaning it’s in a class of its own), it definitely is NOT a civil case where the doctrine is that a general denial is deemed an admission. Impeachment — for the edification of Ms. Luistro — is not about who between two people gets to occupy a condominium unit; it’s about unseating a high official voted in by 32 million people throughout the entire length and breadth of the country, for specific acts narrowly defined in the Constitution.

Even if the subject of an impeachment complaint chooses not to be specific, it will still be up to the House prosecution panel to prove, and prove mightily, each and every alleged impeachable offense. That the Constitution mandates.

Seeing the small caliber of the “in-House” lawyer-representatives, this may be a tough task to handle, a case of the prosecution becoming — if a trial before the Senate were to ensue — a cautionary oddity: Odd cautelam.