Resorting to a quo warranto petition to take out an impeachable public official is akin to supplanting the 1987 Constitution and existing jurisprudence, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno told her Supreme Court colleagues on Monday. More than two weeks after she was forced to take an indefinite break by her peers, the Chief Justice answered Calida’s pleading, which challenged the legality of her appointment in 2012. “[T]he Chief Justice deserves her day in court before the Senate sitting as an impeachment tribunal,” Sereno said in a 77-page comment filed by her lawyer, Justine Mendoza. The Chief Justice said she was ready to controvert this allegation, which was not originally in the impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Lorenzo Gadon, in her impending trial in the Senate. “There is no authority to commence a quo warranto proceeding more than four years after the expiration of the one-year statute of limitations,” she said.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer March 19, 2018 23:26 UTC