MANILA – Ousted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno requested for more time to respond to a show cause order in relation to the Supreme Court ruling on the quo warranto petition against her.
In a motion filed by her lawyer Josalee Deinla before the SC, Sereno asked her former colleagues to give her 15 more days, or until June 9.
In its May 11 ruling, the SC directed Sereno to show cause within 10 days from receipt of notice why she should not be sanctioned for violating the Code of Professional Responsibility and the Code of Judicial Conduct.
The former chief magistrate has become a subject of the show cause order “for transgressing the sub judice rule and for casting aspersions and ill motives to the members of the SC.”
The SC stressed the bar on parties discussing their case in public as it explained that the sub judice rule is applied to lawyers and judges since it is mandated by the Code of Professional Responsibility and the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Sereno’s behavior of “disdain and contempt” toward some SC justices, whom she dubbed as the “Biased 5” originally, and later “Biased 6,” “can no longer be tolerated and she can be disbarred,” the SC said.
In an 8-6 voting on May 11, the SC justices have granted the quo warranto petition as they believed that Sereno’s appointment as Chief Justice was void from the start because of her failure to file her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth to the Judicial and Bar Council in 2012.
Among those who voted in favor of the quo warranto petition were associate justices Noel Tijam, Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Andres Reyes Jr., Lucas Bersamin, Samuel Martires, Alexander Gesmundo, and Francis Jardeleza.
Those who voted against the petition, on the other hand, were associate justices Antonio Carpio, Marvic Leonen, Presbitero Velasco Jr., Mariano del Castillo, Estela Perez-Bernabe, and Benjamin Alfredo Caguioa./PN
