5 magistrates refuse to challenge selves in quo warranto case
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A REYES
Five associate justices of the Supreme Court (SC) have refused to recuse themselves from participating in the proceedings on the quo warranto petition to oust Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
The five magistrates were Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo De Castro, Noel Tijam, Lucas Bersamin, Diosdado Peralta and Francis Jardeleza.
“All motions for inhibition were denied for lack of merit. All justices will explain their decision together with the resolution of this case,” Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, now acting Chief Justice said at the start of the oral argument on the quo warranto case in Baguio City.
In her motions to inhibit, citing Article III, Section 1 of the 1987 Constitution, Sereno said “due process of law requires a hearing before an impartial and disinterested tribunal, and that every litigant is entitled to nothing less than the cold neutrality of an impartial judge.”
All the five justices appeared before the House Committee on Justice and testified in the impeachment complaint against the Chief Justice. /jpv
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