Why Javellana nonetheless issues for judicial evaluate

The Supreme Courtroom’s January 28, 2026 decision denying the Home of Representatives’ movement for reconsideration within the Duterte impeachment case represents greater than a judicial pronouncement on procedural technicalities.

It stands as a vital reaffirmation that constitutional limits on political energy stay enforceable, that courts should not retreat into passivity when basic processes are compromised, and that the teachings of our authoritarian previous nonetheless information our democratic current.

This case has provoked fierce debate about judicial evaluate itself. Critics characterize the Courtroom’s intervention as overreach, calling expanded judicial evaluate “historic baggage” from the Marcos period that impedes democratic governance. They argue impeachment is inherently political and may stay past judicial scrutiny besides in essentially the most excessive circumstances.

This criticism essentially misreads each our constitutional structure and the persevering with necessity of strong judicial evaluate in defending democracy from its personal establishments.

The shadow of Javellana

Understanding why the 1987 Structure expanded judicial energy requires confronting the Supreme Courtroom’s darkest hour. In April 1973, the Courtroom confronted a easy query in Javellana v. Govt Secretary: did Ferdinand Marcos validly ratify the 1973 Structure? The reply would decide whether or not the dictatorship possessed constitutional legitimacy.

The Courtroom failed catastrophically. In a fractured choice with no clear majority, it validated Marcos’ constitutional coup by means of judicial abdication. A number of justices invoked the political query doctrine, claiming the difficulty exceeded judicial competence. Others deployed tortured reasoning to keep away from confronting govt energy immediately.

Then-chief justice Roberto Concepcion stood agency in dissent. His opinion was unequivocal: the 1973 Structure was invalid as a result of it had not been correctly ratified by the Filipino individuals. He refused to deal with basic constitutional questions as nonjusticiable merely as a result of they appeared “political.” However Concepcion was outvoted. The results had been catastrophic. The Courtroom’s failure cleared the trail for 14 years of dictatorship.

Javellana demonstrated that even an unbiased judiciary might grow to be complicit in authoritarianism by means of passivity, by means of hiding behind doctrinal technicalities when braveness was required.

After EDSA restored democracy in 1986, then-president Corazon Aquino appointed Concepcion to the Constitutional Fee, the place he chaired the committee on the judiciary. His expertise formed Article VIII, Part 1 of the 1987 Structure, which defines judicial energy to incorporate “the obligation to find out whether or not or not there was a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or extra of jurisdiction on the a part of any department or instrumentality of the federal government.”

This provision is usually characterised as increasing judicial energy. I train it in another way: as a reaffirmation of that energy and a categorical rejection of the political query doctrine as an excuse for judicial passivity. 

The framers had lived by means of Javellana. They knew what occurred when courts refused to examine political energy. Chief justice Concepcion’s participation in crafting this provision represented his reply to being outvoted in 1973: a Structure that may not allow courts to cover when basic rules had been at stake.

Why Javellana nonetheless issues

Critics dismiss this framework as out of date, suited maybe for authoritarian occasions however pointless in a functioning democracy. 

As a practising human rights and environmental justice lawyer main a improvement and social change regulation agency, I incessantly flip to the Supreme Courtroom to strike down govt or legislative actions that hurt our purchasers. Households of desaparecidos, communities threatened by improvement aggression in Nueva Vizcaya, Pakil, Zambales, and Manila Bay, indigenous peoples whose ancestral domains face exploitation beneath unconstitutional mining legal guidelines — these purchasers rely upon judicial evaluate as their final line of protection towards authorities overreach.

I don’t need to inform them we now have no judicial recourse as a result of courts have been stripped of the ability to declare dangerous authorities actions unconstitutional. That will be a return to Javellana’s abdication, wearing new rhetoric about democratic deference.

Defending sturdy judicial evaluate doesn’t imply embracing judicial supremacy. The Supreme Courtroom makes errors. Its choices could be criticized and its reasoning challenged. Constitutional modification stays accessible to right judicial interpretations if wanted.

However the answer to potential judicial error just isn’t judicial abdication. It’s reasoned judgment constrained by constitutional textual content, precedent, and precept. It’s a Courtroom that acts with humility whereas remaining agency in its obligation to say what the regulation is.

Within the Duterte case, the Courtroom didn’t substitute its judgment about whether or not the Vice President must be impeached. It didn’t consider the deserves of allegations towards her. The Courtroom explicitly said, “our ruling doesn’t absolve petitioner Duterte from any of the fees.” What the Courtroom examined was whether or not constitutional boundaries had been revered in how the impeachment course of was carried out. That’s exactly what judicial evaluate ought to do.

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The January 28 decision’s clarifications

The decision did greater than deny reconsideration. It corrected factual errors from the July 2025 choice, acknowledged {that a} plenary session had permitted transmittal of Articles of Impeachment, and refined the constitutional framework governing future proceedings.

Most importantly, the decision clarified when the one-year bar towards a number of impeachment complaints was triggered. The July choice had calculated the bar from February 5, 2025, when the Home archived the primary complaints and transmitted the fourth. The decision corrected this: for citizen-initiated complaints correctly filed and endorsed, the one-year interval runs from initiation (December 2, 2024), not from dismissal or archival.

The decision additional clarified that the one-year bar was truly triggered on January 14, 2025, when the Home breached the 10-session-day deadline for together with the primary grievance within the order of enterprise. This implies the immunity lapsed on January 15, 2026, and new impeachment complaints might instantly be filed. Progressive and civil society leaders who submitted the primary batch of complaints filed recent ones on February 2, 2026.

The Courtroom additionally addressed what constitutes a “session day” for constitutional deadlines, rejecting the Home’s argument that legislative apply permitting multiday periods ought to apply. “For the initiation stage of impeachment, which is a constitutional course of, a session day is a calendar day by which the Home of Representatives holds a session,” the decision said. This prevents manipulation by means of artistic scheduling and ensures impeachment strikes ahead with acceptable urgency.

Maybe most significantly, the decision refined the due course of necessities in impeachment proceedings, adopting a extra nuanced strategy than the July choice prompt. “The impeachment course of is primarily a authorized, political, and constitutional process. It isn’t a purely political continuing,” the Courtroom held. Due course of applies all through, however in a fashion acceptable to every stage.

For complaints initiated by not less than one-third of Home members, due course of requires that draft Articles of Impeachment be accompanied by proof assembly the Home’s quantum of proof, that this proof be accessible throughout plenary endorsement, and that the respondent obtain a full alternative to be heard in the course of the Senate trial. This framework respects Congress’ political judgment whereas guaranteeing constitutional compliance.

Critics declare the Courtroom’s ruling makes impeachment unimaginable or prohibitively tough. The other is true. By establishing clear constitutional guideposts, the Courtroom has made impeachment extra predictable and constitutionally sound. The Home and Senate now perceive the procedures they need to observe, the timelines they need to observe, and the due course of necessities they need to respect.

We’ll see this as each the Home and Senate take care of the impeachment complaints towards each President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte.

Each semester, I deliver my constitutional regulation college students to the Supreme Courtroom. We collect round former chief justice Concepcion’s portrait. I share my unqualified opinion that he was our biggest chief justice, an honor he shares with martyred chief justice Jose Abad Santos.

We honor Concepcion’s legacy not by treating judicial evaluate as historic baggage to discard however by exercising it with out concern when constitutional rules demand it. The choice — a Courtroom that reflexively defers to political branches and hides behind the political query doctrine — just isn’t judicial restraint. It’s the abdication that enabled dictatorship in Javellana and will allow future abuses.

4 a long time after EDSA and greater than 5 a long time after Javellana, we nonetheless want courts prepared to say what the regulation is and make it imply one thing. That precept, born from the trauma of dictatorship and the braveness of dissenters like chief justice Concepcion, stays the muse of our democratic order. – Rappler.com