(Eagle News) — A lawmaker on Wednesday slammed lawyer Larry Gadon for saying the Makabayan bloc and other groups have no legal standing to question the quo warranto petition filed against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
In a statement on Wednesday, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate said “as he is wont to do,” Gadon “did not read the pleading in intervention that we filed where our standing or right to intervene as legislators and citizens is stated.”
“We have personal and substantial interest which will be prejudiced as a result of the proceedings before this Honorable Court,” Zarate said.
He said their “opposition in intervention on the quo warranto case is grounded on preserving the constitutional process of disciplining impeachable officials.”
Theirs, he said, was to “oppose the further assault and weakening of the Supreme Court and the judiciary.”
He said this was unlike Gadon, who was “engaged in filthy and fetid fishing expeditions.”
On Tuesday, Gadon, who filed a separate impeachment complaint against Sereno, said impeachment and the process of quo warranto “may proceed independently of each other.”
Gadon made the statement after the Makabayan bloc, of which Zarate is a member, and several groups asked the Supreme Court to allow them to intervene in seeking for the dismissal of the quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida.
The petition aims to have Sereno’s appointment as Chief Justice nullified.