Acting Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Antonio Carpio’s refusal to accept a nomination to be the new Chief Justice is commendable and exemplary.
The High Court had sealed the fate of the 24th Chief Justice, Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno, denying her motion for reconsideration on being removed via quo warranto, a questioning of her qualification for office.
Carpio, along with multitudes across the archipelago, dissented on that decision, stating that the only legal way to remove a member of the SC is conviction following a Senate impeachment trial.
In an alternate world, no one would accept a nomination to be Philippine Chief Justice, since the vacancy following Sereno’s removal stemmed from an act that while legal is morally incredible.
In any case, those who cheered Sereno’s removal do not have rest coming any soon. Her ouster has implications more far-reaching than the havoc being wreaked on the country’s democratic institutions.
It cannot be forgotten that the Sereno’s downfall was accelerated by the anger of President Rodrigo Duterte over her insistence on due process in his crackdown on illegal narcotics.
His administration has yet to fully comply with the SC’s order for disclosure of data on what the former calls a “war against drugs.”
If the court, without Sereno, slackens in fiscalizing the Duterte administration with regard to its crusade, they will provide the International Criminal Court (ICC) with a powerful justification to assert jurisdiction in a case of crimes against humanity versus the President.
The question is simple: Will a court prodded by a co-equal branch of government into removing its chief be able to withstand the executive’s anti-drug blitzkrieg and deliver justice to the tens of thousands killed in the drug massacre?
United Nations’ Diego García-Sayán, special rapporteur on judicial independence had this to say about Sereno’s expulsion and Duterte’s portrayal of her as an enemy:
“Not only do they constitute direct intimidation of the Chief Justice; they also appear to have had have a ‘chilling effect’ on other Supreme Court justices, who may have been deterred from asserting their judicial independence and exercising their freedom of expression.”
Let us see how the ICC will respond to a court that becomes inutile in stopping a law enforcement project that results in mountains of corpses instead of safer communities.