Answer ouster plea, SC orders Sereno

In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court (SC) has ordered its sitting chief justice to answer a petition seeking her ouster from the top judicial post.

Magistrates led by acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio decided in session yesterday to require Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to comment on the quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida challenging the legality of her appointment as SC chief in 2012.

In a resolution, the SC gave Sereno 10 days from receipt of notice to comply with the order.

Only Associate Justice Marvic Leonen dissented from the ruling and voted to dismiss the petition outright.

While the SC acted on Calida’s petition, it dismissed a similar petition filed last week by lawyer Oliver Lozano “for failing to provide substantial allegations to justify a cause of

action.”

An insider revealed that Associate Justice Noel Tijam, appointee and law school classmate of President Duterte in San Beda University, was assigned as member-in-charge of Calida’s petition after raffle.

The court’s action came after the justices decided to compel Sereno to take an indefinite leave of absence while facing impeachment trial so as not to drag the judiciary into her personal battle.

In his petition filed last Monday, Calida asked the SC to nullify Sereno’s appointment over her alleged ineligibility for the top judicial post. Calida wants the SC to remove her from office, saying her authority hinges on an appointment that was void from the start.

The chief government lawyer argued that Sereno did not meet the specific qualification of proven integrity for the chief justice post with her failure to comply with the required submission of 10-year statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs).

“Respondent was appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court although she did not show that she is a person of proven integrity, an indispensable qualification for membership in the judiciary under Section 7(3), Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution,” Calida’s petition read.

“Such ineligibility means that she is unlawfully holding the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, even as she was ostensibly recommended by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) under Section 8(5), Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution,” Calida maintained.

“Respondent’s failure to fulfill the requirement of complete filing of SALNs means that her integrity remains unproven,” read his quo warranto petition.

A quo warranto petition, as provided for in both Article VIII Section 5(1) of the Constitution and Rule 66 of the Rules of Court, challenges the legal basis of one’s appointment and seeks the removal of the respondent from office because of lack of qualification or legal basis to continue holding such office.

Calida stressed that the inclusion of Sereno by the JBC in the shortlist and her eventual appointment as chief justice in August 2012 by then president Benigno Aquino III “does not extinguish the fact that she failed to comply with the SALN requirement under the Constitution and relevant laws.”

“As the filing of the SALNs is a constitutional and statutory requirement, the exist- ence of her previous SALNs for the years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 precisely would have furnished the evidence to prove, among others, that she is meticulous in complying with the law... The legal implication of respondent’s failure to file her SALNs to prove her integrity cannot be downplayed,” the solicitor general said.

“The submission of SALNs is not an empty requirement. It is a mechanism devised by law to test the integrity of a person already in the government service,” Calida stressed, citing Article XI Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution.

Sereno’s non-filing of her SALNs, he added, proved her lack of integrity as a public officer.

The top government counsel also rebutted Sereno camp’s claim that she could only be removed from office through impeachment as an impeachable official.

“A lawyer who has a basic grasp of our Constitution and jurisprudence ought to know that impeachment and quo warranto are two entirely different proceedings with entirely different grounds for filing,” he said.

“These two proceedings run on different tracks – the impeachment proceeding being under Section 2, Article XI of the Constitution with unwritten assumption here is that the officer was eligible and that the assumption of office was valid,” he added.

‘No extinguishing fact of non-compliance’