CHIEF Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno will show up during the oral arguments set by the Supreme Court on the quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida seeking her ouster from the high court, her spokesman said Wednesday.
Jojo Lacanilao said Sereno will insist on the dismissal of Calida’s petition for lack of jurisdiction.
“Yes, CJ [Chief Justice] will attend the oral arguments to answer the questions of justices, but her appearance is without prejudice to our jurisdiction challenge,” Lacanilao said in a text message to reporters.
He made his statement even as Sereno found allies in opposition Senators Leila De Lima and Antonio Trillanes IV who asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to dismiss Calida’s petition for lack of jurisdiction.
In a petition for intervention, De Lima and Trillanes warned the high court justices against becoming “a party to a patent transgression of the Constitution.”
“Any proceeding whose aim is to remove an impeachable public officer outside an impeachment trial in the Senate is a palpable violation of the Constitution,” De Lima and Trillanes said in their petition.
“It is a diminution of the Impeachment Clause, a circumvention of the exclusive character of an impeachment and incompatible with the design of the Constitution.”
Lacanilao’s statement came after the high court required Sereno to attend the oral arguments on April 10 at the Court Session Hall in Baguio City and answer the questions from her colleagues.
Sereno’s appearance was ordered by the high court as a condition for granting her plea for oral arguments.
But Lacanilao said while Sereno would attend the hearing, their camp will still argue that the tribunal lacks jurisdiction over the quo warranto case.
Sereno’s supporters also said they will seek the inhibition of Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo- De Castro and other justices in the case.
De Castro was among the justices who testified against Sereno in the earlier impeachment hearings before the House justice committee.
April 10 will be the first time a sitting chief justice will face her fellow justices in an oral argument, and not as head of the Court but as a respondent in a case.
In the petition filed he filed last month, Calida asked the high court to nullify Sereno’s appointment because that allegedly was void from the start.
Calida claims Sereno did not meet the specific qualification of proven integrity for the post of chief justice with her failure to comply with the required submission of 10-year statements of assets, liabilities and net worth.