NOW it is official: The squared jawed Supreme Court Associate Justice Teresita Castro, who wears a perpetual smirk on her face, has instigated the filing of quo warranto petition against Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno.
Buoyed by her consuming anger and envy on Sereno's fortune to be named the chief magistrate despite her junior status, Castro has been raising questions on the Chief Justice's integrity and qualifications to the extent of allegedly inventing legal strategies that hardly conform to the provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
Perceiving they do not have a strong case against the Chief Justice, her enemies know that impeachment would not hold as a means to oust her from her post.
Until now, Rep. Reynaldo Umali, whose committee has voted the impeachment complaint has "probable cause," could not come out with an articles of impeachment.
Her enemies have to find what has been described as "creative ways" to oust the Chief Justice. A quo warranto petition is regarded a novel way to remove her but not without the many nuances.
Solicitor General Jose Calida has filed a quo warranto petition against the Chief Justice to raise as "an issue of integrity" her failure to submit her Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALNs).
According to Josa Deinla, the Chief Justice's spokesman, the Chief Justice wrote the Judicial Bar Council (JBC) on July 22, 2012, advising its members that she could not submit her SALNs for 2009, 2010, and 2011 because the University of the Philippines, of which she was once a law teacher, could not retrieve copies of her submissions.
The JBC is the constitutional body that screens nominees for key position in the judiciary.
Deinla said the Constitution does not mention any specific rules for the JBC to follow, thus allowing the body to what she described a "wide latitude" to draft its own procedures. The JBC has its rules to screening nominees.
Deinla argued that it was not the Chief Justice's fault to fail to submit her SALNs, adding it was the UP's. But the JBC has somewhat relaxed its rules on SALNs, enabling the body to submit Sereno's name in the shortlist it had submitted to then President Benigno Aquino Jr.
The SALNs' issue in the case of Sereno is different from Renato Corona, who was removed from office in 2012. Corona was removed because he failed to include about P200 million in questionable personal funds in his SALNs.
In Sereno's case it was UP's failure to find her earlier submissions and JBC's relaxation of rules to allow the submission of her name in the short list from where the president at that time picked up the next chief justice.
But the quo warranto appears to be an illegal shortcut to remove the Chief Justice, Deinla said, as she pointed to impeachment as the only way the Constitution has ordained to remove Sereno and other impeachable officials.
Deinla discussed the legal implications of the quo warranto saying that if ever the Supreme Court gives due course to Calida's petition and removes the Chief Justice from her current post, it could lead to a situation where other officials would be unsure of the legitimacy of authority of the posts they hold.
It is tantamount to opening the floodgates of similar quo warranto procedures, as anybody could raise the same argument on every public official, she said.
Since Calida was claiming that the Chief Justice's post is void ab initio, or illegal since the first day she has assumed it, all her official acts could be questioned and declared illegal, causing enormous issues in the judiciary., Deinla said.
"It could lead to the erosion of the judiciary," she said.
She said parties which could be adversely affected or stand to be injured by the Chief Justice's removal through quo warranto could file petitions for intervention to join the forces opposed to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment