In part 1 issued last Sunday, the error of fact was about the Supreme Court’s (SC) claim that the fourth Article of Impeachment was transmitted to the Senate “even without a plenary vote.”
This finding of the SC was negated by the House of Representatives as can be seen in page 8 of their Motion for Reconsideration. The record of the plenary session for such a purpose is found in the 19th Congress, Congressional Record, Vol. 3, No. 36b (Feb. 5, 2025), which is available online.
This shows that the Ponente, and the other 12 Justices, have indeed committed this error of fact in their decision en banc, that the Articles of Impeachment are unconstitutional. This now leads us to the second and third questions: (b) were such errors honest mistakes? (c) or were such errors rather fruits of conspiracy?
(2) Can we believe that such errors were honest mistakes? With plain logic, it is difficult to convince ourselves that those were honest mistakes. First, we can consider them as legal luminaries in this country.
And as justices, they cannot afford to merely scratch at the surface of any legal case that reaches the hall of the Supreme Court. Rigorous scrutiny is always the SOP.
Secondly, they are 13 legal luminaries who scrutinized the document before signing it, including the Ponente himself. Did all 13 of them really miss such errors of facts? Did they soften or brush aside the rigorous demand of the rules of evidence? It would be understandable if they were just ordinary people in society, like me, who only have three pieces of law. It is not far-fetched to think of some other factors that could have influenced their decision. Instead, to think of it as an honest mistake is what is rather far-fetched.
As far as I know, Legal Philosophy is one of the subjects in the study of law. It deals also with what is called “metalegal factors” that could affect the decisions in the court of law. The Greek word “meta” indicates that these factors are beyond the rules of law, but nevertheless influence legal outcomes, as court justices are mere human beings. These factors include social, cultural, economic, political, and even ethical factors.
One could not help but speculate that one or several of these factors could have influenced those 13 Justices in their decision on the Articles of Impeachment. Political factor could be possible; economic factor is another.
It is possible that such errors of fact were really known to them but, supposing political factor was at play, they skipped those errors cognizantly. It has the effect, such that, if those errors would not be detected, then the SC’s decision would just go unobjected. And the impeachment complaint would be delayed, if not killed.
Supposing that such a metalegal factor was really at play, then, is it too difficult to suppose that such a decision of the Supreme Court was a sort of fruit of conspiracy? It could be seen that such subjective metalegal factor overruled and brushed aside the objectivity that is a requisite in court decisions.
If the SC would not reverse its decision, in spite of the obviousness of such errors of fact, then, it could be said that there could be a real metalegal factor at play very strongly, that even objectivity in court decisions and truth are sacrificed on the altar of conspiracy.
This country has been plundered not only economically but even epistemologically. Well, in the end, Jesus’ words — “the word I have spoken, it is that which will condemn him on the last day” (Jn. 12:48) — may be extensionally applied as: “such words being spoken in such decision will condemn them in the last day.”