Impeachment Trial, Now Open.

The Senate, after constituting itself into an impeachment court, and the senators have taken their joint oath as judges, looks forward to January 16, 2012 when the grinding impeachment trial commences.

The chief justice continues to insist on implicating the judiciary, the institution, in the impeachment case filed against him when he should not. The institution is insulated. The articles of impeachment are clearly directed against him.

While he raises in his defense the singularity and independence of his vote and those of the other justices, he contradicts himself when he says Pnoy will get the judiciary if the house succeeds in ousting him.

It is forthcoming for one to rally his sympathizers to his side in the face of overwhelming odds. The judges and court personnel across the country obliged understandably. Whether that was a good move will depend on the backlash it will create.

Already, unwittingly put to limelight is the perennial and enormous backlog of cases that have collected dusts in the courts. At any angle you look at it, a Court-sanctioned holiday does not assuage the sentiment against, at least, the snail’s pace that the cases take as they do now.

If one files a complaint with the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) against court personnel who abandoned their posts to show their support for the chief justice, would the court be justified to say that it had authorized it? Or if the OCA denies mobilizing them; for tolerating them, instead of ordering them back to their posts?

If so, then how does it reconcile with court’s jurisprudential pronouncements articulating that government workers are not entitled to the right to “strike”, or collective actions, as public service is not liable to disruptions?

My, I shudder to think the other side might make an impeachment ground out of it.