SC justices facing impeachment should be disqualified from CJ post – Lagman

By JOHN CARLO M. CAHINHINAN

Opposition solons believed that Supreme Court (SC) magistrates who are facing impeachment raps should be disqualified from being the country’s next Chief Justice.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said an impeachment complaint was “akin to or even more serious than an administrative case whose pendency disqualifies applicants for position in the judiciary under the Revised Rules of the Judicial and Bar council.”

“The impeachment complaints will frustrate the aspiration of the concerned justices for nomination and/or appointment to the vacant position of Chief Justice,” said Lagman.

On Thursday (August 23), Lagman and other legislators belonging to the “Magnificent 7 Bloc” filed separate impeachment complaints against seven SC magistrates who voted in favor of the removal of former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno through a quo warranto case.

Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, and Andres Reyes Jr. recently were included in the shortlist of JBC for the Chief Justice post.

The four SC magistrates were included in the impeachment raps filed by the Magnificent 7.

“In the case of the aforesaid Justices applying for the vacant position of Chief Justice, they lack independence because they succumbed to the importuning of President Rodrigo Duterte who wanted the removal of Sereno whom he announced publicly as his enemy,” said Lagman.

The Albay solon added that the nominated SC justices also “lack fidelity to sound moral and ethical standards as required by the JBC because they refused to recuse themselves from participating in the adjudication of the quo warranto petition despite their ill will and bias against Sereno.”