The Supreme Court vs Maria Lourdes Sereno

SUPPORTERS of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno make it appear that an attack on her is an attack on the entire Supreme Court, or even the entire judiciary.

They insist that the motives of about their personal knowledge of the alleged misdeeds of the Chief Justice have seriously undermined the collegiality and have permanently damaged the integrity of the Supreme Court.

They argue that what these justices have raised are administrative issues that should have been internally addressed within the court, and where their internal rules should have been invoked.

A close perusal of the internal rules of the Supreme Court, however, does not specify the mechanism for removing a sitting Chief Justice for serious offenses. In fact, disciplining the Chief Justice is totally non-existent in the entire history of the judiciary. The rules of collegiality of a body that subsists on written memoranda, and less on open verbal warfare, leads to a culture where the power of disapprobation is preferably manifested not in openly censuring the erring justice’s behavior, but in reversing his or her opinions.

And the Chief Justice stands accused, as attested by members of the court, of committing serious offenses.

Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro spoke of Sereno as having committed misrepresentation in two instances. She said Sereno misrepresented her on the issuance of a TRO on an election case, where De Castro was erroneously cited as the originator of the recommendation. The Chief Justice also misrepresented the en of Court Administrator Midas Marquez, when she unilaterally created the Judicial Decentralized approval by the court.

Associate Justice Noel Tijam revealed Sereno as a Chief Justice who acquired a case in violation of the internal rules of the Court.