The Makabayan bloc on Thursday filed an opposition-in-intervention to the quo warranto petition filed by the Office of Solicitor General (OSG) against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes A. Sereno.
Party-list Reps. Antonio L. Tinio and France L. Castro said the petition filed against the chief magistrate before the Supreme Court (SC) is “wrong and unconstitutional.”
“We [have filed an] opposition-in-intervention to the quo warranto petition filed by the OSG against Sereno so that we could be included in the proceedings and support the Chief Justice from the quo warranto case filed against her,” Tinio said.
“As Chief Justice, which is an impeachable public official, she can only be removed from her office by means of impeachment, which Congress has jurisdiction,” he added.
The 1987 Constitution, he said, specifically provides for the exclusive mode of removing from office a “special class” of public officials.
“Only the President, the Vice President, the members of the Supreme Court, the members of the constitutional commissions and the Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment on several grounds,” Castro, for his part, said.
Tinio said that removing the Chief Justice through the courts and by her own peers threatens judicial independence and separation of powers.
“Impeachment is the jurisdiction of Congress. The continuation of the quo warranto petition would ultimately weaken the branches of government and give more power to the
Executive,” he said.
“All allegations in the quo warranto are already part of the Articles of Impeachment,” Castro stated. “If those who want her out of the Chief Justice position have sufficient evidence for their grounds for impeachment, then they should follow the correct and constitutional procedure to impeach a Chief Justice,” Tinio added.
The filing of a quo warranto petition by the OSG only means that the masterminds of the impeachment against Sereno are not confident that their case will withstand the Senate trial.
“This is a desperate attempt from the proponents of the impeachment case against the Chief Justice to completely control the Judiciary,” he said.
“The credibility and trust of the people in the Judiciary and justice system is what is at stake. The Judiciary should not let the Executive use their institution as an instrument for an emerging dictator and a tyrannical rule,” he added.
Dangerous
For his part, Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate said that the filing of the quo warranto case against Sereno sets a “very dangerous and ruinous precedent that can even be used against any impeachable officer, including other justices of the Supreme Court who go against the wishes of and in the crosshairs of the administration or interest groups.”
“The Supreme Court itself ruled that it is forbidden to shortcut or circumvent the impeachment process. In the past, it did not even allow the disbarment of a justice of the High Court because it maintained that the proper process is through impeachment, so the same process should also be accorded to CJ Sereno,” Zarate said.
“As it is, the quo warranto case is wrong and unconstitutional because it robs the Filipino people the means to properly hear and judge the side of CJ Sereno through a trial at the Senate, seating as an impeachment court. As representatives of the people, we will not allow this legal short cut to take that power away from the people and, at the same time, undermine the Judiciary as an institution by letting CJ Sereno’s peers to oust her,” the lawmaker said.
Zarate also said all allegations in the quo warranto case are already part of the Articles of Impeachment and have already been approved by the Congress Justice Committee. “It would be to the best interest of the country if CJ Sereno is given her fair trial in the Senate impeachment court.”
1 comment
The petItioners-in-intervention have no personality to intervene in the quo warranto proceeding under Rule 66 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure. They cannot save de facto chief justice Sereno from being ousted by the Supreme Court. I suggest they read Funa v. Villar, NP v. De Vera, and Estrada v. Desierto and consolidated case (Estrada v. Arroyo) to be enlightened.