Supreme Court Associate Justice Edgardo Delos Santos. Image from SC website
MANILA, Philippines—Whether the petitions on the legality of President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs will be resolved this month remains a question as the justice-in-charge of the case is set to retire on June 30.
“Hopefully, Justice EDSA will be able to write his ponencia before he retires,” Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo told reporters.
Associate Justice EDSA is Edgardo Delos Santos who is set for early retirement on June 30. He became the justice-in-charge of the case following the retirement of then Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.
In 2017, the high court has held an oral argument on the case. Carpio has ordered the Office of the Solicitor-General (OSG) to submit documents related to the government’s war on drugs.
Initially, however, while Solicitor-General Jose Calida refused to submit the documents invoking national security.
READ: SolGen won’t give drug war records to SC
Eventually, the government has complied and submitted documents. But one of the petitioners, Center for International Law (CenterLaw), said the government has given the Supreme Court “rubbish” documents.
READ: SC asked to hold OSG, PNP in contempt over ‘rubbish’ drug war docs
“The ponente is working on the case already. So, depending on the submissions, he will present to the court en banc deliberation, that’s the time we will see the assessment of the documents presented by the OSG,” Gesmundo said.
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