THE camp of Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno has asked the House of Representatives to speed up the transmittal of the articles of impeachment against her to the Senate for trial.
The call came after the House committee on justice approved on Monday the six articles of impeachment to be submitted for deliberation by the plenary for filing in the Senate.
Lawyer Josa Deinla, one of Sereno’s spokespersons, said Sereno is now eager to answer the charges in impeachment trial before the Senate.
“The chief justice eagerly awaits the transmittal of the articles of impeachment to the Senate where she is ready to defend herself against the unfair, unjust and malicious allegations, which are the bases of the obviously biased impeachment proceedings conducted by the House committee on justice,” Deinla said.
She said the House panel should expedite the process and prove their case before the Senate, which, together with the House, has the “exclusive authority to discipline all impeachable officers for any impeachable offense.”
Deinla said the articles of impeachment approved by the committee chaired by Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali “consist of allegations that do not even constitute impeachable offenses.”
Voting 33-1, the House panel approved the six articles of impeachment against Sereno after earlier voting to find probable cause in the charges.
The committee wants the chief justice impeached for culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, corruption, and other high crimes based on the six grounds, including the alleged non-filing of and non-disclosure of assets in her statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth and misuse of government funds in purchasing her P5 million Land Cruiser service vehicle.
Deinla pointed out that the Chief Justice has not done anything unconstitutional or impeachable to merit her removal from office, saying the truth is on her side.
“Our chief justice is ready to prove that there is no basis for those articles of impeachment. She believes she would be able to defend judicial independence with the support of the people,” she said.
Also on Monday, Sereno asked her colleagues in the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition for quo warranto filed by the Office of the Solicitor General seeking her removal as top magistrate for allegedly failing to comply with all the requirements when she applied for the position in 2012.
In a 77-page comment, Sereno through her lawyers led by Alexander Poblador sought the dismissal of the petition for lack of jurisdiction and merit.
Sereno argued that the SC has no authority to remove her from office through a quo warranto action because the 1987 Constitution specifically enumerated the officials that can only be removed by impeachment.
Sereno cited Section 2, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution, which provides that impeachable officials, which include all members of the Supreme Court, may only be removed from office upon impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court. The Court itself has consistently applied this provision as a limitation on its power to remove public officers.
She said the high tribunal “cannot take cognizance of or give due course to the [OSG petition] without running afoul of the plain dictates of the fundamental law and established judicial precedents.”
Sereno said that she should also be given the opportunity to respond to the allegations against her through the impeachment trial.
“The chief justice deserves her day in court before the Senate sitting as an impeachment tribunal,” Sereno said.
“To rule otherwise, and to preempt the impeachment process by summarily ousting the chief justice via quo warranto, would be tantamount to overthrowing the Constitution itself,” Sereno added.
Sereno also asserted that the quo warranto petition should not be entertained at all because it is “time-barred.”
Under Section 11, Rule 66 of the Rules of Court provides that a petition for quo warranto must be filed within one year from the “cause of ouster.”
“There is no authority to commence a quo warranto proceeding more than four years after the expiration of the one-year statute of limitations,” Sereno said.
The chief justice also disputed the substantive basis of the quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida.
Sereno questioned the claim of OSG that she did not meet the requirement for proven integrity over her alleged failure to submit her SALNs when she was law professor at the University of the Philippines prior to her appointment to the SC as associate justice in 2010.
Sereno said that contrary to petitioner’s claims, it has not been proven that she failed to comply with the SALN laws while in UP, especially since she was cleared by UP of all administrative responsibilities and accountabilities as a member of its law faculty.
The chief justice even cited the certificate of clearance issued by the UP Human Resource Development Office, which was also submitted during the impeachment hearings before the House Committee on Justice.
She argued that that only the Judicial and Bar Council has the power to determine who meets the integrity requirement for appointment to the judiciary and that such a question is a purely political one.
“There is no authority for the judicial review of a purely political question, as the OSG cannot substitute its judgment for the discretion of the JBC to include a name in the shortlist for the position of chief justice, and certainly the OSG cannot overturn the then President’s decision to appoint her to that position,” she said.
Besides, Sereno said the submission of all SALNs for those in government is a requirement that the JBC can waive. She admitted that the JBC waived this requirement for her, but said it also did so for 13 other applicants who had failed to submit their complete SALNs to the JBC.
She said the other applicants for the chief justice post in 2012 also did not submit complete SALNs were retired Associate Justices Roberto Abad and Arturo Brion, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Deans Raul Pangalangan and Amado Valdez, as well as Congressman Ronaldo Zamora. Except for the two deans, all the others were shortlisted together with Sereno.
Sereno filed her answer to the quo warranto petition as SC officials and personnel again wore red shirts in their flag-raising ceremony for the third consecutive Monday in a symbolic call for her resignation.
In the petition filed March 5, Calida asked the Supreme Court to nullify Sereno’s appointment over ineligibility for the top judicial post and order her removal from office as a de facto official whose authority was allegedly hinged on an appointment that was void from the start.
Calida asserted 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 SALNs.
Sereno was appointed Chief Justice in 2012 or six years before the quo warranto petition was filed.