Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Day Two: Padre Faura Punts, Prosecution Fumbles

Day Two of the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona produced a number of interesting developments.

First, away from the Senate, the Supreme Court did not create a Constitutional Crisis some worried about by issuing a TRO nullifying the Impeachment Complaint of the House of Representatives. Instead the High Court deferred any decision on five separate suits urging Padre Faura to do so, notably that of lawyers Homo Adaza and Alan Paguia based on the accusation that there was no proper verification of the complaint transmitted to the Senate for trial. It gave all parties ten days to submit their Comments.

Second, the first hour or so of the resumed trial proper saw the Senate deny the Prosecution's motion to issue subpoenae to Chief Justice Corona, his wife, children and other relatives summoning them to testify at the trial. The ruling of presiding Senator Juan Ponce Enrile was challenged by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, but was upheld upon the subsequent vote 14-6.

Third, the question of the role of private prosecutors on the House team was settled.

Fourth, the subject of blaring headlines tomorrow occurred. The House Prosecution turned out to be unready to present admissible evidence on the matter of the Accused's property holdings, the subject matter of the second charge in the impeachment complaint. It was a near complete rout for the Prosecution as JPE would not accept computer generated material from the Prosecution without the requisite evidentiary verifications of the same and instead, mercifully for the abashed House presenter, Rep. Barzaga, allowed for an immediate adjournment of the session to Wednesday. Trying to put the best face on the embarrassing development House Prosecutors called it "a learning experience." The less flattering characterizations are all over Twitter where #CJonTrial is trending.

2 comments:

Jego said...

First, away from the Senate, the Supreme Court did not create a Constitutional Crisis some worried about by issuing a TRO nullifying the Impeachment Complaint of the House of Representatives.

Any TRO issued by the SC on the impeachment trial should be ignored by the Senate. In fact, the Senate should assert in no uncertain terms that once it convenes as an impeachment court, it IS the supreme court as far as impeachment trials go. The impeachment court is not under the Supreme Court and it shouldnt even think of ordering it around. Some of the judges of the impeachment court arent even lawyers which just shows you that this court is a special one. It is laudable of the SC to have not acted by issuing a TRO but it wouldve been interesting if they did and the Senate tells them to bugger off.

Jego said...

Apparently, Sen Santiago has pre-emptively told them to bugger off. :-D