Abbas v.

Senate Electoral Tribunal

Summary Cases:

Abbas vs. Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) 166 SCRA 651

Subject: Art VI, Sec. 17 (Electoral Tribunal composition)

Facts:

Petitioners filed before the Senate Electoral Tribunal an election contest against 22 candidates of the
LABAN coalition who were proclaimed senators-elect in the May 11, 1987 congressional elections. The
SET was composed of 3 SC justices and 6 senators. The issue revolves around the fact that the
senators subject of the election contest before the Trubunal were also the sitting senator-members of the
Tribunal. Petitioners moved for the Disqualification/Inhibition of the Senators-Members on the ground
that all of them are interested parties to said case. Other senators involved voluntarily moved to recuse
themselves. The Tribunal denied the move for mass disqualificatin of effectively all of its
senator-members.

Petitioners argue that the disqualification of the Senator-members was consistent with due process and
fair play and proposed that the Tribunal amend its rules of procedure so as to permit the contest being
decided by only three members (SC Justices) of the Tribunal.

Held:

Electoral Tribunal composition

1. In providing for a Tribunal to be staffed by both Justices of the Supreme Court and Members of the
Senate, the Constitution intended that both those "judicial" and "legislative" components commonly
share the duty and authority of deciding all contests relating to the election, returns and qualifications of
Senators.

2. The proportion of Senators to Justices in the prescribed membership of the Senate Electoral Tribunal
is 2 to 1 ---- an unmistakable indication that the "legislative component" cannot be totally excluded from
participation in the resolution of senatorial election contests.

3. The proposed mass disqualification, if sanctioned and ordered, would leave the Tribunal no alternative
but to abandon a duty that no other court or body can perform, but which it cannot lawfully discharge if
shorn of the participation of its entire membership of Senators.
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4. Every Member of the Tribunal may, as his conscience dictates, refrain from participating in the
resolution of a case where he sincerely feels that his personal interests or biases would stand in the way
of an objective and impartial judgment. However, the Senate Electoral Tribunal cannot legally function as
such absent its entire membership of Senators and that no amendment of its Rules can confer on the
three Justices-Members alone the power of valid adjudication of a senatorial election contest.

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