Tuesday, November 06, 2007 Bautista: Amending the impeachment complaint (part 1) By Jun Bautista Straight Views
OPPOSITION groups have found a weapon in their arsenal to overcome the perceived flaws in the latest impeachment complaint against Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Not willing to gamble on the validity of the impeachment complaint filed by former Oakwood mutiny lawyer Roel Pulido -- the dismissal of which will insulate the President from impeachment for one year -- the opposition is now contemplating on amending the impeachment complaint to correct its seeming defects.
Malacañang, however, is unperturbed -- at least as far as its pronouncements are concerned. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told the media that an impeachment proceeding against the President had already been initiated, implying that an amendment to the Pulido complaint will be subject to the one-year bar. This is further bolstered by the President’s election lawyer, Romulo Macalintal, who opined that the amended impeachment complaint will be treated as a new one.
To further dampen the opposition’s plan, administration congressman Prospero Nograles boldly claims that the amendments cannot be made based on precedents in the House. According to him, if amendments and supplements were not allowed by the House in the Estrada and Oliver Lozano impeachment complaints, there is no reason to allow amendments in the Pulido complaint.
Let us backtrack a little to put these statements into context. The Philippine Constitution decrees that no impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year. This rule was interpreted in the 2003 case of Francisco, et al. v. House of Representatives, et al., G.R. No. 160262 (November 10, 2003) and its consolidated petitions.
In this case, which involved the filing of a second impeachment complaint against former Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., the Supreme Court ruled that an impeachment proceeding is initiated when a verified impeachment complaint is filed and referred to the House justice committee for study as against the respondents’ view that initiation takes place only when the House acts on the complaint as a collective body.
Since the Pulido complaint had already been referred to the House justice committee for deliberations, this bars the initiation of any other impeachment proceedings against President Macapagal-Arroyo within the one year prohibition period.
The crucial question now, as present developments indicate, is whether or not an amended impeachment complaint will constitute a new complaint that will subject it to the one-year bar. Malacañang has obviously and expectedly taken the affirmative side.
An impeachment is neither a criminal nor a civil case. It has the characteristics of both criminal and civil cases in that trial-type proceedings are held to determine the charges against the concerned official, but is at the same time political in nature because the key players (judges and prosecutors) are political figures. Its object is not the imposition of a penalty or vindication of private rights but removal from office of the erring public official. It is suigeneris or a class of its own.
Nevertheless, given the lack of rules in the House of Representatives to govern the amendment of an impeachment complaint, the court if called upon to resolve the issue, may resort to rules of procedure in criminal and civil cases.
The basic rule on amendment in civil cases is that an amendment supersedes the pleading (complaint or answer) that it amends. Supersede means to take the place or position of something. In effect the amended pleading replaces the original.
Before the 1997 amendments to the Rules on Civil Procedure, the High Court in Verzosa, et al. v. Court of Appeals, et al., G.R. No. 119511 (November 24, 1998) distinguished between two types of amendments for the purpose of determining the commencement of a suit and whether or not the amended complaint will supersede the original.
The court held that if an amended complaint introduces new issues or claims not found in the original complaint, the suit is deemed to have been commenced upon the date of the amendment. In short, for purposes of determining the commencement of a suit, the original complaint is deemed abandoned and superseded by the amended complaint only if the amended complaint introduces a new or different cause of action or demand.
But given the present rule it would seem that regardless of the nature of the amendments the amended complaint always supersede the original.
