The Senate is not higher than the Supreme Court

This is a comment I wrote in reaction to Harry Roque's blogpost: “The Senate is higher than the Supreme Court.”  He cited Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago's statement during the trial of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona:   

“The Senate, as an impeachment court, is higher than the Supreme Court...  (it) should be called the Presidential High Court of Impeachment, It is not subordinate to the Supreme Court, given the constitutional phrase, ‘exclusive power to try and decide’ on the impeachment of the chief justice.  ...You might be supreme but we are high.”  

I fully agree with the legal arguments posed by the eminent international law expert slash destabilizer extraordinaire, save for one point which he had put in the title of his blogpost.  

I fail to understand how the hierarchy of courts plays into the impeachment trial. Does not the hierarchy refer to the appellate power of higher courts to review, revise, reverse, amend or modify the rulings of lower courts? Last I looked, the principle of separation of powers remained hale and healthy.  

Senator Teofisto Guingona III had also pointed out during the Corona impeachment trial that the Senate is only one half of a bicameral Congress, and that the Legislature as a whole is co-equal to the Judiciary and the Executive branch of government.   

The Constitution has given the Senate the "sole" power to try officials impeached by the lower house. If anything, that provision on exclusive jurisdiction takes the Senate (as the trier of impeachment cases) away from the hierarchy of courts. In fact, nowhere in the Constitution is the Senate referred to as a court.  

The same Constitution gives the Supreme Court its expanded certiorari powers to look into the acts of other government agencies. We all know that not all abuses of discretion are susceptible to the SC's expanded certiorari power. Only grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction can be subject to appeal. But not all grave abuses are cognizable by the high court.  

The question turns to the articles of impeachment: Did the 188 congressmen gravely abuse their discretion by signing the complaint that became the articles? That question is up to the Senate to rule upon because, once the articles have been transmitted, the Constitution requires the Senate to try the impeachment case "forthwith." The Senate has rightly ruled this matter as moot.  

How then can the Supreme Court exercise its expanded certiorari power over the decision/verdict/ruling of the Senate to convict or acquit the impeached official?   

We all know that a judgment of acquittal cannot be appealed because that runs afoul of the prohibition against double jeopardy. How about conviction -- can the high court exercise its appellate power over the exclusive trier of impeachment cases?   

But before the Supreme Court's exercise of appellate power, there is a more important prejudicial question: How much discretion was given by the Constitution to the senators who would decide in impeachment cases? That is, to me at least, a purely political question beyond certiorari, expanded or otherwise, and outside the ambit of judicial powers-that-be.  

The Senate is not a higher court. But the Supreme Court is not, or should not, go into policy-making. The separation of powers remains resolute. - HS, GMA News