Wednesday, March 19, 2008 SC to rule on Neri case next week
WITH its lineup of justices now complete, the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday announced it would rule on the petition of Commission on Higher Education (Ched) chairman Romulo Neri next week.
SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said Chief Justice Reynato Puno ordered during the en banc session that the case should be decided on before the end of the month.
This means that the high court will decide on the case before the start of its summer sessions in Baguio City on April 1.
Marquez said newly installed Justice Arturo Brion already participated in Tuesday's deliberation on the Neri case.
Brion earlier told reporters that he sees no reason why he should not participate in the Neri case, saying he will rule on the case as fairly as he could.
Neri's petition sought the SC ruling that would set the parameters in the invocation of executive privilege in light of the communications between him and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on the controversial national broadband network (NBN) contract.
Neri, who filed the suit in his capacity as former National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) director, claimed that the three questions posed by the Senate during its inquiry into the broadband deal are privileged communications covered by the principle of executive privilege and which can only be divulged during an executive session.
The three questions are whether the President followed up the NBN-ZTE project with Neri; whether he was told by the President to prioritize the NBN-ZTE project; and, whether the President told him to go ahead with the project after learning of the massive bribe offer.
Neri's invocation of executive privilege on these questions has prompted the senators to cite him for contempt and to issue a warrant for his arrest. This also subsequently compelled him to seek relief from the SC.
At the end of the oral arguments last March 4, SC magistrates proposed a compromise wherein Neri will again attend the Senate hearings and testify on the ZTE bribery scandal, provided that the senators will respect his invocation of executive privilege on three questions.
The proposal was made so that the Senate can exhaust all questions with regard to the NBN-ZTE controversy and those questions that Neri would refuse to answer on the ground of executive privilege would have to be set aside and be brought back to the SC through a supplemental petition for determination whether the executive privilege were validly invoked.
Should the parties agree to the compromise, the arrest warrant and citation for contempt on Neri would then be lifted and the Senate would continue with its interrogation of the Cabinet officials.
Neri, however, still has the right to invoke executive privilege for certain questions. If he does, all these will be gathered and later elevated via a supplemental petition to the court if the Senate determines that he could not invoke the privilege.
The senators junked the compromise and said they will just wait for the court to issue its ruling on the petition based on the two parties' arguments. (ECV/Sunnex)
