The myth of judicial infallibility: When courts trade truth for power
On the Contrary
The Manila Times
August 26, 2025
IN constitutional democracies, the Supreme Court is revered as the final arbiter of disputes. Its rulings are binding, its interpretations woven into the fabric of the law of the land. This finality is essential for stability. Without it, our legal system would spin endlessly in uncertainty. But finality is not infallibility. And when citizens are compelled to bow to a decision that rests on an egregious factual inaccuracy, we cross a dangerous threshold.
We move from the rule of law into the realm of judicial tyranny.
The belief that the Supreme Court is beyond error is neither constitutional nor historical. Our Constitution grants the Supreme Court the “final say” in legal disputes, not the divine gift of unerring judgment. The justices are human beings, capable of brilliance, yes, but equally capable of mistakes, bias, and even willful misreading. The law they apply is grounded in human language, which is open to interpretation. The facts they consider are filtered through evidence, testimony, and sometimes political convenience.
We now have a contemporary and alarming example of how factual error at the highest judicial level can warp constitutional meaning: the Supreme Court’s ruling on the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte. The court declared the complaint unconstitutional, saying it violated the Constitution’s one-year bar on initiating impeachment proceedings. Central to its reasoning was its assertion, citing an ABS-CBN report, that the fourth impeachment complaint had not been approved by the House plenary, implying that the earlier complaints remained pending and that the constitutional clock was still ticking.
There is just one problem. There was a vote, and ABS-CBN never reported that there was none. Yet this factual inaccuracy was not a mere side note; it was embedded in the very logic of the court’s ruling. Without this “fact,” the legal conclusion about the one-year bar collapses.
When the Supreme Court rules on a matter, the legal system requires compliance. That is how stability is preserved. But stability is not worth the price of truth. A ruling built on a factual inaccuracy corrodes the very foundation of justice. And when all other institutions enforce or accept that falsehood because “the Court has spoken,” the people are left defenseless. This is the essence of tyranny: power without truth, authority without accountability.
The framers of our Constitution never intended for the judiciary to be unanswerable to reality. They built safeguards: motions for reconsideration, the possibility of doctrinal reversal, legislative clarification and constitutional amendment. These mechanisms exist to ensure that judicial authority remains tethered to truth. But safeguards mean little if they are rendered meaningless by the court’s unwillingness to revisit obvious errors, or by a political climate where questioning the court is treated as sacrilege.
It is often said that the Supreme Court has neither purse nor sword, that its authority rests solely on public confidence in its wisdom and integrity. That confidence is not sustained by blind obedience. It is sustained when the Court shows humility in the face of factual correction and courage in admitting its mistakes.
The problem becomes acute in politically charged cases. When a ruling benefits those in power, it is tempting for political actors to wrap themselves in the Court’s authority, declaring the matter closed. But when the ruling itself rests on a flawed understanding of the facts, such closure is an illusion. The decision becomes a shield for impunity, not a triumph of justice. And should the Court resist correction, even in the face of undeniable error, it aligns itself not with the law’s higher ideals, but with the very forces the law was meant to restrain.
Consider the risk this poses for precedent. The Supreme Court’s decisions do not vanish after the case ends. They become part of the law, cited in future cases as guiding principles. An error in one case can metastasize into many, distorting the application of justice for years or decades. Entire legal doctrines can be built on foundations of sand, and unless the Court itself dismantles them, they will stand. The Sara Duterte impeachment ruling now stands as such a precedent, one in which a verifiable misstatement of fact is treated as legal truth.
There are those who argue that questioning the Court undermines the rule of law. But the opposite is true. Unquestioning obedience to a demonstrably false ruling is not respect for the rule of law. It is a submission to the rule of error.
The judiciary’s legitimacy comes from the perception that its rulings are grounded in both sound legal reasoning and factual accuracy. Strip away the latter, and you are left with decisions that may be legally enforceable but morally bankrupt. Such rulings may command obedience, but they will never command genuine respect. And without respect, the Court’s authority is brittle, maintained only through the coercive power of the state, not the voluntary consent of the governed.
In moments when the Court errs, the test of its institutional maturity is not how forcefully it defends its decision, but how swiftly and transparently it moves to correct it. The people are not unreasonable. They do not expect perfection from justices any more than they expect it from legislators or presidents. What they do expect is honesty, humility and fidelity to truth.
The path away from judicial tyranny is not to strip the Court of its final say, but to ensure that finality is always open to the possibility of self-correction. This is why robust dissenting opinions matter. This is why academic critique matters. This is why a vigilant press matters. The Court may have the last word in law, but the people must have the last word in truth.
When finality is used as a shield for error, we move closer to a system where obedience replaces reason, and submission replaces justice. That is not the democracy our Constitution promises. That is not the rule of law. That is, in its quiet, robed way, the very essence of tyranny.
Disclosure: I am a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of state-run PTV Network, Inc.
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