House panel to accuser: Don’t dictate on solons

SHUT up.

This was the response of Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, chairperson of the House of Representatives’ committee on justice, to lawyer Lorenzo Gadon who filed the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Gadon, at a news forum last Monday, said he would ask congressmen to issue a subpoena against Sereno to compel her to appear in the impeachment hearing.

‘‘If she does not appear, I will also request that she be arrested,” Gadon said.

But Umali said Gadon had no business dictating on lawmakers what they should do.

In a related development:

* The camp of Sereno has assailed Gadon for his plan to seek the issuance of subpoena against her to compel her attendance before the House of Representatives.

 Sereno’s spokesperson, lawyer Josa Deinla, branded the move as “ridiculous” since House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas had admitted the Chief Justice, being a respondent in an impeachment proceeding, could not be compelled to testify before the House Committee on Justice as she was not a witness subject to a subpoena process.

 Deinla stressed even senators Franklin Drilon and Francis Escudero, who will act as judges if the impeachment case is brought to the Senate, had warned against forcing the Chief Justice to attend the committee hearings as doing so might lead to a constitutional crisis.

 “Mr. Gadon cannot brush aside our fundamental laws. He is the one who deserves to be arrested or held in contempt for committing multiple perjurious statements and for putting pressure on Congress to violate the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the Chief Justice,” Deinla said in a statement.

Umali said members of the House justice panel had discussed the possibility of issuing a subpoena.

The House justice panel which hears the Sereno impeachment complaint will resume its proceeding on Jan. 18 next year. 

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and House majority leader Fariñas earlier said the House leadership would  not force Sereno to attend the impeachment proceedings.

Alvarez said should the House justice committee find enough evidence to warrant a trial of the impeachment case against Sereno to trial in the Senate they would do so.

Fariñas earlier said, during the executive session of the House justice panel earlier, he advised the committee members that under the rules—whether in administrative or criminal cases—the respondent could not be compelled to testify.

Under the same rules, Fariñas said the committee could not compel Sereno to answer the allegations raised against her in the impeachment complaint, and if she took this option it would be deemed a general denial of the charges against her.

Sereno has submitted to the Committee on Justice her answer to the allegations raised in the Gadon complaint.

Sereno has refused to attend the hearings, sending her lawyers instead to cross-examine the witnesses against her.

But the committee said she should do the cross examination herself, not her counsel.

Earlier, Gadon earned the ire of lawmakers for making unfounded accusations against senators as he claimed he received information that an “oligarch” planned to bribe senators with P200 million to ensure that the top magistrate was acquitted in an impeachment trial.

The Sereno camp also maintained the Chief Justice fully respected the impeachment process, having submitted her Answer and Rejoinder to the impeachment complaint.

             “She does not have to personally appear at all because it is for Mr. Gadon to prove the allegations in his complaint, and not for the Chief Justice to disprove the same considering that he has not even proved anything. Moreover, the accusations have been sufficiently addressed in the Chief Justice’s pleadings filed before the House justice committee,” Sereno’s spokesperson said.

            She also noted that Sereno had expressed her intention to participate in the impeachment proceedings through the representation of her lawyers of choice, but this was denied by the committee.

 Gadon earlier said there were issues only Sereno could answer, such as those regarding her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth and her personal data sheet.

 In his impeachment complaint, Gadon alleged, among other things, that Sereno failed to truthfully disclose her wealth in her application to the judiciary.

 Gadon said Sereno should emulate her colleagues who had already appeared before the House justice committee’s hearings to testify against her.

Rey Requejo