The prosecution in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial said the vote requirement to convict should be viewed through the lens of accountability, the principle that runs through the heart of the Constitution.
House prosecutor and Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno said the prosecution is confident about its case regardless of the denominator used for the two-thirds vote to convict, but added that it is not fixed at 16 because it can change due to the circumstances.
Senator-judges must have participated in the proceedings for them to be able to vote, Diokno said.
Diokno noted that the four amici curiae tapped by the Senate Impeachment Court share the view that 16 is not a fixed number.
He said the prosecution would not suggest which interpretation the court should adopt, but it would suggest a view by which it could be done.
“Perhaps you will allow me, on behalf of the prosecution, to share another lens through which the different views may be considered. It is a principle that runs through our Constitution, and I submit, is at the heart of our Constitution. It is also the principle that, or the very reason why, this honorable court exists. And that is accountability,” he said.
He said the 1987 Constitution is an accountability Constitution, and this is explicitly stated in the provision that public office is a public trust.
Viewed through the lens of accountability, he said the threshold question is not what is the easiest arithmetic, but what interpretation “faithfully allows the institutions involved to perform the responsibilities the Constitution has assigned to them while respecting the safeguards that the Constitution itself has imposed.”
“That is the contribution of the accountability lens. Sa tingin po ng prosecution, lubhang mahalaga ang aktibong partisipasyon ng hukom sa paglilitis, pagkilatis sa ka-angkupan o fitness ng official ang ginagawa sa impeachment trial” he said.
Diokno also said that while the Constitution makes an impeachment conviction harder by imposing the two-thirds vote requirement, this does not mean it should count those who did not participate.
“But making it harder does not depend on senators who are not judges, or who are incapable of acting as judges. That would be tantamount to an acquittal by default, a failure to arrive at the threshold number, caused, not by the judgment of the incapacitated senators, but by their mere inclusion in the denominator,” he said.
He also said the two-thirds vote to convict does not change, and what the Impeachment Court must determine is the constitutionally applicable membership given the Senate’s actual legal capacity to perform its impeachment function, mindful of the circumstances before the court.
The Impeachment Court is determining the basis for the two-thirds vote to convict, whether it is based on all 24 members of the Senate or the actual number who are able to participate in the proceedings.