SC on trial: Bersamin lashes back at Leonen

Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, who wrote the Supreme Court’s decision that allowed Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile to post bail last week, has taken exception to a dissenting magistrate’s “gross distortions” over how the majority ruling on the plunder case was reached.

In a one-page letter sent Monday to Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and furnished all the other members of the court, Bersamin also accused Justice Marvic Leonen of “unprecedented invasion of the autonomy of the majority in arriving at its main opinion.”

Bersamin also sought “rectification of the gross distortions contained in Justice Leonen’s dissent that have not only put me in a bad light but worse also impugned the integrity of the seven members of the Court who joined my ponencia (majority opinion) by claiming they signed the ponencia without knowing the version they were joining.”

Bersamin asked that the two issues be discussed in Tuesday’s en banc session. He said he also circulated on Monday a “rejoinder” that would contain the two issues which he would submit for discussion Tuesday.

The apparent spat stemmed from Leonen’s account in his 29-page dissenting opinion as to how the majority opinion on the grant of bail came about.

The justice said a draft decision originally circulated by Bersamin early this year adopted mainly the legal arguments raised by Enrile, which was centered on the Supreme Court taking judicial notice of evidence to establish two generic mitigating circumstances that would lower the penalty to be imposed even before trial or a hearing for the determination of whether the evidence of guilt is strong happened in the Sandiganbayan.

However, Leonen said that when the case was deliberated during the en banc session on Aug. 11, Bersamin proposed the idea of dropping all discussions on the legal points pertaining to whether bail was a matter of right and focusing instead on the grant of bail on “humanitarian” grounds.

Bersamin then committed to circulate a revised draft, which he did so on Aug. 14. The new draft granted bail to Enrile based on his medical condition by which Leonen aired concerns about, saying the basis of the grant of bail gave rise to new issues that must be further discussed.

In the Aug. 18 en banc, Leonen said Bersamin insisted on vote and said he would agree to wait for a more extensive written reflection of the issues raised by Leonen.

Bersamin, according to Leonen, declared that he was abandoning the Aug. 14 draft in favor of his earlier version, which was premised on the idea that bail was a matter of right based on judicial notice and the judicial declaration of the existence of two mitigating circumstances—his age and his voluntary surrender.

After increasing the bail from P500,000 to P1 million, the court voted 8-4 in favor of Bersamin’s latest version.

Leonen said that later in the afternoon, Bersamin passed around the final copy of the majority opinion. However, Leonen said this was not the version voted upon in the morning deliberation but “substantially” the same as the Aug. 14 version that granted bail on humanitarian grounds.

Leonen later issued his dissent which was joined by Sereno and Justices Antonio Carpio and Estela Perlas-Bernabe. Bersamin’s ponencia was joined by Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Mariano del Castillo, Jose Perez and Jose Mendoza.

Enrile, who has been detained for about a year, was charged with plunder in the Sandiganbayan in connection with the P10-billion Priority Development Assistance Fund scam allegedly orchestrated by businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles.

The Supreme Court earlier granted the senator’s motion for a bill of particulars, which would allow him to secure specific details of the crime imputed to him.