(Eagle News)– “A legal abomination.”
This was how Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen described the quo warranto petition that led the Supreme Court to decide to declare nullified the appointment of Maria Lourdes Sereno as Chief Justice on Friday, May 11.
In a Tweet that likely quoted his dissenting opinion hours after the High Court decision was issued, Leonen said the petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida “should have been dismissed outright and not given due course.”
“It does not deserve space in judicial deliberation within our constitutional democratic space,” he said.
According to Leonen, “even if the Chief Justice has failed our expectations, quo warranto, as a process to oust an impeachable officer and a sitting member of the Supreme Court, is a legal abomination.”
“A better reading of the Constitution requires us to read words and phrases in the context of the entire legal document. The general grant of original jurisdiction for quo warranto actions to this Court in Article VIII, Section 5(1) should be read in the context of the provisions of Article XI, Sections 2 and 3 , as well as the principles of judicial independence and integrity inherent in a constitutional order implied in Article VIII, Sections 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 of the Constitution,” he said.
He said the decision therefore “creates a precedent that gravely diminishes judicial independence and threatens the ability of this Court to assert the fundamental rights of our people.”
It also “installs doctrine that further empowers the privileged, the powerful, and the status quo,” as he called the SC “subservient to an aggressive Solicitor General.”
“We render those who present dissenting opinions unnecessarily vulnerable to powerful interests,” he said.
Apart from Leonen, Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco, Marvic Leonen, Estela Perlas Bernabe, Alfredo Caguioa and Mariano del Castillo; and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio dissented.
Voting in favor of the petition were Associate Justices Teresita de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Samuel Martires, Noel Tijam, Andres Reyes Jr., Alexander Gesmundo and Francis Jardeleza.
Earlier, Sereno asked that De Castro, Peralta, Bersamin, Martires, Tijam and Jardeleza inhibit from the quo warranto cases, citing their alleged bias and animosity toward her.
