(UPDATED) - The Supreme Court en banc on Tuesday, June 19, still voting 8-6, rejected the appeal of ousted chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and affirmed her unprecedented removal through a quo warranto petition that invalidated her appointment.
In a statement, the Supreme Court said it denied with finality during an en banc session on Tuesday Sereno’s motion for reconsideration of its May 11 decision.
The court also declared June 19 as the start of the 90-day period for filling the post of the chief justice.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr., in a press conference earlier Tuesday in Cotabato City, confirmed that the country’s highest court has junked Sereno’s motion for reconsideration.
“Nagkaroon na po ng desisyon. Nabasura na po ang kanyang (Sereno’s) motion for reconsideration (A decision has been rendered. Her motion for reconsideration has been rejected),” Roque said.
Sereno, a critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, was ousted as chief justice on May 11 by a vote of 8-6 that granted the quo warranto petition filed by the Office of the Solicitor General.
The quo warranto petition cited Sereno’s alleged failure to file her SALN in compliance with the requirements of the JBC when she applied for the post in 2012.
The ruling was rendered a month after the court heard on April 10 oral arguments on the petition while in session in Baguio City.
Read: Supreme Court ousts Sereno
The May 11 ruling ordered the chief justice to vacate her post for lack of proven integrity due to her failure to file all her SALNs when she was still working as a professor in the University of the Philippines.
Sereno challenged this ruling. In her motion for reconsideration filed on May 30, she said the decision to oust her through a quo warranto petition violates the Constitution which accorded the Congress the sole right to unseat impeachable officers.
She warned that such decision could lead only to the destruction of judicial independence and separation of powers.
The Justices who voted to grant the OSG's quo warranto petition against Sereno were Asssociate Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Francis Jardeleza, Samuel Martires, Noel Tijam, Andres Reyes, and Alexander Gesmundo.
The six against it were Senior Associate Justice and now Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco, Mariano Del Castillo, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Marvic Leonen, and Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa. (Keith A. Calayag/SunStar Philippines)