(Eagle News) — Supreme Court Associate Justice Noel Tijam was already drafting the Supreme Court decision that nullified Maria Lourdes Sereno’s appointment as Chief Justice four days before she submitted comments to the quo warranto petition against her, Sereno herself said on Saturday, June 2.
In a statement, Sereno said the information was based on the footnotes of Tijam’s 153-page ponencia.
“Justice Tijam had condemned Respondent before he heard her,” she said.
According to Sereno, Tijam also called the Judicial and Bar Council to obtain information about her.
She said such an act “is not allowed” as it “shows prejudice.”
“If a judge who suggested to a party what evidence it should present was held to have ‘transgressed the boundaries of impartiality,’ with all the more reason should a Justice who motu proprio looked for and considered evidence which neither party submitted be held to have transgressed such bounds,” she said.
Tijam was among the six justices Sereno asked to inhibit before the Supreme Court decided on her fate based on the petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida.
But Tijam, Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Lucas Bersamin, Diosdado Peralta, Samuel Martires and Francis Jardeleza refused to inhibit.
With a vote of 8-6, the SC went on to nullify Sereno’s appointment as Chief Justice after ruling she lacked integrity for, among others, not submitting her complete Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
Apart from the six, Associate Justice Andres Reyes Jr. and Alexander Gesmundo voted in favor of the nullification.
Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, and Associate Justices Marvic Leonen. Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Presbitero Velasco, Jr., Estela Perlas-Bernabe, and Mariano del Castillo voted against.
