Judicial review, or the power to hold legislative, executive and other governmental actions unconstitutional, somehow allows the Supreme Court to be first among equals or otherwise claim judicial supremacy. The power ebbs and flows, however, depending on the Court’s obtaining judicial philosophy – judicial self-restraint or judicial activism. As an aftermath of the impeachment of [...]

The US Supreme Court in Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993) (where the House of Representatives adopted articles of impeachment against petitioner Walter Nixon, the Chief Judge of a Federal District Court, and presented to the Senate) has explained the non-justiciability of the impeachment (because the matter involved a political question) in this [...]

It is generally conceded that impeachment is more of a political than a legal process. However, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), supposedly the official organization of lawyers in the Philippines, has issued a statement raising an interesting legalistic claim regarding the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona. The statement argues that while the [...]

To one looking at the broader picture of the travel ban against former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, sans the witting or unwitting shortcomings of the key characters from all sides, it may be reasonable to assume that the question of great commonsensical importance may inevitably boil down to: Who among these players is actually acting [...]

For months, the nation’s attention has been fixated on the move by the new administration to oust via impeachment Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez with a view to taking down a formidable hindrance to President Noynoy Aquino’s campaign promise of holding accountable corrupt public officials in high office. An earlier attempt to impeach the Ombudsman during the [...]

Veteran opinion-maker Amando Doronila, in his Philippine Daily Inquirer piece last month (“Lynch-mob rule in impeachment,” March 14, 2011), dared to compare the congressional efforts to remove from office Ombusdman Merceditas Gutierrez to “lynching,” or putting to death a person by mob action and without legal authority, because in his mind the removal process being [...]