Did justices decide based on synopsis?

Everyone has the right to defense, including mighty Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in her impeachment. But her hiring of Sal Panelo and Anacleto Diaz as defense counsels raises eyebrows. For, the two also represent clients whom the Ombudsman is supposed to prosecute.

Panelo is a lawyer of former Comelec chief Abalos; Diaz, of the alleged over-pricers of the Macapagal Boulevard. Gutierrez is being impeached for dismal prosecution and conviction rates. Among the examples mentioned are the ZTE and MegaPacific scams, both involving Abalos and which Gutierrez allegedly weakened.

There are over 50,000 other lawyers in the Philippines. Even if only for appearance’s sake, Gutierrez would do well to distance herself from attorneys of Ombudsman litigants.

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So, did the Supreme Court really, without first reading the case, vote to bar Congress from impeaching Gutierrez?

A second justice has come out to say so, adding to revelations of the way the tribunal deliberates. This happened amidst reports that the SC might have ruled on the constitutional issue based not on Gutierrez’s 65-page petition but a one-page synopsis.

Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno reiterated yesterday that she was not given a copy of the petition for the en banc session of September 14, 2010. This was why she  with Justices Antonio Carpio and Conchita Carpio Morales  voted against Gutierrez’s plea for a restraining order. Based on the logs of her office and the Clerk of Court, Sereno received the papers only at 2:15 p.m., after the regular Tuesday morning en banc. By then, eight Justices  Chief Renato Corona, Mariano del Castillo, Lucas Bersamin, Diosdado Peralta, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama, Jose Perez and Presbiterio Velasco  had voted to stop the House of Reps’ impeachment hearings.

Sereno was reacting to the claims of SC administrator-spokesman Midas Marquez that all the justices got copies of the files for the session. Supposedly the papers were distributed on the conference table.

Last week Carpio asked Marquez to correct his statements in press interviews. He said he received a copy only after the September 14 session. He attached the Clerk of Court’s delivery receipt, showing all 15 justices to have received the papers after the session, ten in the afternoon of September 14 and five on September 15. Process server Johnny Aquino attested to the veracity of the receipt before Assistant Clerk of Court Felipa Anama and Carpio’s judicial staff head Ma. Teresa Sibulo.

On February 15, 2011, the SC voted 7-5 to lift the restraint on the House committee on justice. In explaining their votes, Carpio and Sereno narrated the absence of the papers in the morning of September 14. “There are seven separate opinions in the case, by Justices Carpio, Antonio Eduardo Nachura, Arturo Brion, del Castillo, Abad, Perez and myself,” Sereno said yesterday. “Not one of the other six opinions, or the majority ponente, contradicted or comment(ed) on (Carpio’s narrative). There were three en banc sessions after the distribution of the draft of Justice Carpio’s concurring opinion, on February 1, 8, and 15, 2011. Not a single oral or written remark by any of the justices was made on (Carpio’s narrative) during the said sessions. The only explanation for this absolute lack of comment is that Justice Carpio’s statement on the objection of the three justices . . . is completely true.”

Marquez explained Tuesday in the DZMM radio show of Ted Failon and Pinky Webb his basis for saying the papers were distributed. He said the Clerk of Court and the Assistant (Anama) separately had told him so, that’s why he was surprised by the latter’s turnaround.

Sereno rebutted Marquez in her press statement. She said that Anama was the acting Clerk of Court on September 14. Clerk of Court Enriqueta Vidal assumed office only on September 21, 2010. “Prior to that she had nothing to do with en banc cases,” Sereno said. Unlike the three original dissenting justices, Sereno added, Marquez had no personal knowledge of the missing papers.

In the radio interview Marquez said that the unidentified original ponente had received a copy upon Gutierrez’s filing on September 13. That’s why this justice was able to draft a synopsis, which was distributed to the others before the September 14 session. Chief Justice Corona too got a copy and prepared his own summary, Marquez added.

If this were true, and the six other participating justices received copies only after the session  based on the delivery receipt  the implication is grave. The SC ruled on a serious constitutional matter  stopping a separate co-equal branch of government from performing its functions  based on a one-page synopsis and not on the full 65 pages of petition (248 pages if including annexes).

In her press statement, Sereno said that a “letter” sent to her office by the original ponente on September 14 could have been the synopsis. She never got to read it, though. Still, she said, “this point is irrelevant. The justices had the right and duty to read the petition in the context of what it was asking for  the issuance of a restraining order against the House in the exercise of its power of impeachment.”

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