Lawyers’ group asks SC to reject Calida move to oust Sereno

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A REYES

The country’s biggest association of lawyers has rallied around Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and echoed calls by several groups and individuals to toss out Solicitor General Jose Calida’s bid to oust her from the Supreme Court.

In a 29-page pleading, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) said the reasons Calida cited in his quo warranto petition would set a “dangerous precedent” in removing impeachable officials.

“(N)one of the grounds raised by (Calida) rise to the level of legitimate constitutional questions requiring the judgment of the honorable court,” the IBP told the tribunal.

“(Calida’s) petition, while evoking a seemingly novel approach, in truth applies a disingenuous reading that can only be deemed legitimate if the text of the Constitution is to be deliberately twisted. This is a dangerous precedent,” it said.

The IBP’s petition was the third filed in the high court seeking to dismiss Calida’s attempt to unseat the Chief Justice by circumventing the impeachment process apart from Sereno’s separate response against Calida’s move.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, “running priest” Robert Reyes, former Sen. Rene Saguisag, activists and militant lawmakers brought two separate petitions to the tribunal on Thursday.

Reiterating Sereno’s arguments, the IBP said the solicitor general challenged the validity of the Chief Justice’s appointment way beyond the one-year prescriptive period of filing such petition as spelled out in Rule 66 of the Rules of Court.

The lawyers contested Calida’s claim that the tribunal had previously acknowledged that impeachable officials may be removed through a quo warranto petition.

They said the 1987 Constitution explicitly stated that an impeachment process in Congress was the only method to remove members of the Supreme Court.

The IBP said the framers of the Charter specifically stated during their deliberations that the impeachment was “intended to be the only mode of removal of impeachable officers for impeachable offenses.”

“(T)he view that impeachable officers may be removed only by impeachment for impeachable offenses is supported by the constitutional provision limiting the initiation of impeachment proceedings to one per year,” the IBP argued.

“To allow an impeachable officer to be subjected to such modes of removal from office other than impeachment is to sanction the circumvention of the one-year bar rule,” it added.