Can Vice President be charged? DOJ, Sara Duterte camp show why and why not

Can a sitting Vice President be charged in court?

The Department of Justice believes only the President is immune from suit while in office and, thus, the grave threats cases against Vice President Sara Duterte were filed before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

While a lawyer for Duterte said she didn't plan to evade the law, her camp believes the Vice President may not be prosecuted for an alleged offense that is also the subject of an impeachment case.

“The DOJ's position is that presidential immunity is lodged solely in the president as chief executive, which is why the DOJ filed the case against the accused,” Justice spokesperson Polo Martinez said in a message to reporters.

To recall, the DOJ filed three counts of grave threats against the vice president over her remarks that she hired an individual to kill President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and former speaker Martin Romualdez, should an alleged plot against her succeed.

Following this, Duterte filed a motion to quash on the ground of jurisdiction, arguing that she and other impeachable officers have limited procedural immunity while in office under the 1987 Constitution.

The court held the oral arguments on Duterte’s motion in late August. Duterte had said her remarks were "maliciously taken out of logical context."

The vice president’s alleged grave threats against the Marcoses and Romualdez are also the basis of one of the Articles of Impeachment against her in the ongoing trial before the Senate impeachment court.

After hearing the oral arguments presented by Duterte’s team and the prosecution, the Quezon City (QC) Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 98 decided to issue an arrest warrant against her.

In an order dated September 4, the QC RTC said that, after an assessment and due consideration of the arguments raised by both parties, it found probable cause to hold Duterte for trial.

The court issued the warrant and set her bail at P120,000 per count.

“The Court after personal evaluation and assessment of the Resolution… together with its supporting evidence, and after due consideration of the arguments raised by both parties in their oral arguments, the Court finds that there is probable cause to hold the accused for trial,” it said.

Martinez previously said that the criminal case should not be affected by the ongoing impeachment trial.

“Procedurally speaking, the conduct of a criminal case in the RTC QC should not be affected by the ongoing impeachment proceeding, and that applies vice versa,” he had said.

Duterte’s team, however, believes differently.

“Equally important, as a sitting impeachable officer, the Vice President may not be prosecuted for an alleged offense that is also the subject of an impeachment case,” lawyer Paul Lawrence Lim said in an earlier statement. –NB, GMA News