OpinionsEcon 101Understanding quo warranto

Understanding quo warranto

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The Integrated Bar of the Philippines, through its National President Abdiel Dan Elijah Fajardo, has publicly declared its stand on the petition for quo warranto against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

The 40,000-strong IBP filed a pleading to allow their opposition-in-intervention; the Supreme Court noted the pleading, stating that: “The Constitution admits of no other mode of removal of impeachable officers for impeachable offenses is clear from the text of Article XI, Section 2.”

The provision of the 1987 Constitution provides that the “President, the Vice-President, the members of the Supreme Court, the members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.”

The group of lawyers also stressed that Chief Justice Sereno was deemed qualified for a position at the high court by the Judicial and Bar Council, which is mandated by the Constitution to screen applicants for the bench, first for her appointment as Associate Justice in 2010, and second for her appointment as Chief Justice in 2012. “To impose the subjective judgment of an outsider to a process, confined by the Constitution to specific actors, would enable an intrusion that the Constitution neither defines nor allows,” the IBP said.

This issue has Filipinos asking: what is a quo warranto?

Quo warranto (Latin for “by what warrant”) is a special form of legal action used to resolve a dispute on whether a person has the legal right to hold the public office that he occupies. It is used to test a person’s legal right to hold an office, not to evaluate the person’s performance in the office.

Some constitutional experts have opined that the Supreme Court was courting a “constitutional crisis” when it considered the quo warranto petition filed with the intended purpose of removing Sereno as Chief Justice, urging that the High Court “must show respect for the Constitution, and a co-equal branch by allowing Congress to perform its constitutionally- mandated duty, and to adhere to the very Constitution they are sworn to protect and abide”.

Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, said there is a growing sense that the country’s democratic institutions are being threatened by government’s recent rhetoric and “threats of retribution, resulting in a chilling effect on these democratic institutions.”

Richard Heydarian, a political analyst, said the moves to oust the Chief Justice and the Ombudsman have “weakened the check and balance within the Philippine democracy”.

Congress has moved forward with the impeachment case against the Supreme Court Chief Justice. It is important to remember that the appropriateness of state actions is one of the central canons of democratic governance. At present, we all are aware that the House of Representatives is under full control of the President’s allies.

Efforts to confront the Administration in a constitutional manner are more or less confined to the Senate. The Upper House’s oppositionist role may also explain why in the government’s blueprint for a new constitution, there is no room left for that chamber.

It is of public knowledge that the Administration have been pushing for constitutional change from the presidential to a federal form of government.

Quo vadis, Pinas?

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Author’s email: [email protected]

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