While the Philippines’ controversial decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) has captured global headlines, the case for outside legal intervention is building as President Rodrigo Duterte moves to neutralize his country’s judiciary.
A House of Representatives justice committee voted this week to endorse articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, the country’s highest magistrate and one of the few independent checks left on Duterte’s strongman government.
Sereno was forced to take indefinite leave earlier this month amid an avalanche of what many saw as politically motivated accusations filed by Duterte’s political allies. The impeachment articles are widely expected to be passed by a plenary of the Lower House, likely when Congress comes back in session in May.
In recent weeks, Duterte and his congressional allies have moved to neutralize the country’s highest court. Since Duterte’s ascent to power, Sereno has been among the few high-level officials who has dared to openly criticize and resist the president’s lethal war on drugs.
It’s a risky position to take. Former justice secretary and incumbent senator Leila DeLima is currently languishing in prison on trumped up drug charges after openly and frequently questioning the legality of the killings in Duterte’s drug war.
Rights groups estimate as many as 12,000 people have been killed in the campaign, a figure the government hotly contests. Sereno has frequently warned that the extrajudicial killings were eroding the rule of law across the country.
It’s a view shared in some quarters of the international community. The ICC, which has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for cases of crimes against humanity and in cases where national courts are unable or unwilling to prosecute criminals, has said its inquiry into the drug war will continue despite Duterte’s decision to withdraw from the court.
He’s arguably now bidding to create the illusion that the Philippine judiciary is operating freely and independently by using legal means to remove Sereno.
Solicitor General Jose Calida, a known Duterte ally, filed a petition on March 5 asking her colleagues in the Supreme Court to declare Sereno’s 2012 appointment as top judge as unlawful and to remove her from office. The government’s highest prosecutor alleged that the magistrate has abused her public position and violated her obligations as head of the judiciary.
Sereno, an appointee under former president Benigno Aquino III, has served on the Supreme Court since 2010 and is widely respected in legal circles. She has a law degree from the University of Michigan in the United States and served previously as a legal counselor at the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body Secretariat in Geneva.
She has also previously served as a legal counsel to the government’s Office of the President, Solicitor General and Department of Trade and Industry. Yet Duterte has openly accused her of acting as a proxy for the opposition and as a de facto enemy of his administration.
In reality, the judiciary is increasingly stacked with Duterte’s allied appointees and otherwise deferential justices who have supported various of his controversial executive decisions, including Duterte’s order to bury former dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Cemetery of National Heroes.
They have also backed his hotly contested decision to impose and maintain martial law across the entire island of Mindanao. There has been no movement in the courts to bring any top level officials to account for the high number of killings in the drug war, motivating a local lawyer and lawmaker to appeal to the ICC.
Both the Solicitor General and Duterte’s legislative allies have pointed to alleged irregularities in Sereno’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) during her 19-year tenure as a law professor at the University of the Philippines, prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court, as grounds for her impeachment.
They have also tried to portray Sereno as psychologically volatile and otherwise unfit to serve as the judiciary’s head. In a highly controversial and potentially illegal move, Duterte’s congressional supporters revealed the details of a psychological test Sereno took when applying for her position at the Supreme Court.
They summoned former court clerics and psychologists to testify against her fitness to serve in public office, with some claiming that she “failed” the psychological test since she allegedly exhibited neurotic tendencies such as “grandiosity, sense of unlimited power, sense of entitlement, exploitative to take advantage of others, and lack of empathy and sensitiveness to other members of the community.”
The blatant attempt at character assassination and clear violation of her privacy has sparked public outrage. The Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAP), composed of the country’s mental health professionals, declared in an official statement that claims “that the Chief Justice ‘failed’ the psychological evaluation are misleading, as no one ‘passes’ or ‘fails’ a psychological assessment.”
The PAP said that even if, “psychological test results become public documents, this does not grant permission for anybody to use it for any purpose other than its original intent,” which was an evaluation of her fitness prior to her court appointment. “To use a psychological assessment conducted in 2012 (which was for the purpose of Chief Justice Sereno’s appointment) for the current legislative proceedings is a misuse of those results,” the association said.
Ironically, perhaps, United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein told a news conference earlier this month that Duterte’s frequent slurs against the UN suggest he’s the one who needs to see a psychiatrist.
“These attacks cannot go unanswered, the U.N. Human Rights Council must take a position,” Zeid said after Duterte’s government sought to get a UN investigator, a former Philippine lawmaker and four former Catholic priests declared as “terrorists.” “He needs to submit himself to some sort of psychiatric examination,” Zeid said.
The Philippine business community has also come to the chief justice’s defense. The influential Makati Business Club, an association of comprised of the country’s leading entrepreneurs, beseeched the government to give “the chief justice the chance to defend herself within our constitutionally-defined process.”
Duterte’s allies in Congress have so far refused to grant Sereno the chance to present her case during legislative hearings.
The business community is particularly concerned with the building climate of impunity, exemplified in the mass unresolved extrajudicial killings in the drug war and shrinking space for political dissent, both of which have hit the country’s international image and raise the risk of political instability.
The influential business group reminded the government that, it’s “absolutely essential for businesses that laws and contracts will be upheld for them to invest and create more jobs which is what will ultimately reduce poverty in a sustainable way.”
Sereno still hopes to forestall her impeachment at the Philippine Senate, where Duterte enjoys a slimmer majority due to a significant number of democratic independents and opposition members. The Senate will act as judge in any impeachment trial where the Lower House forms a prosecution team.
Sidelining Sereno would pave the way for Duterte’s complete domination of the country’s judiciary, eliminating yet another check and balance on his rule.
It will also likely amplify calls for the ICC to pursue its inquiry into whether Duterte should be held to account for crimes outside of the Philippine’s increasingly politicized judicial system.
great
bullseye
They were on vacation…
Where is the Church. They should protest against grab for dictatorship by Duterte. Why is everybody so blinded by the President authoritarian rule. What is the cause of drugs comsumption in the first place. Poverty. Pure poverty. Solve that problem and you solve the drugs addiction.
The CIA drug empire in Philippines is unravelling fast! Well done President Duterte.
There are lots of drug addicts that are rich or in a rich country. Those people are screwed in the head. If I am to believe someone, I would rather believe someone here in the country , not some foreign group . Do they know our problems in the country? Do they have a solution. Did duterte ordered the killings? You mean he got so much time to order a police man to chase and shoot a particular person, a teenager, an innocent person?
@Dominic Ong. Poverty is not the root cause of drug addiction. It is more on the availability of it, plus the life style. high income countries have more addicts than the Philippines. In my town alone, it is those people who have the money to buy shabu that used (until duterte became president) it, not the poorest ones.
Haha indeed on vacations
Vilma Pegg do I know Philippines problem. Yes I do. Corruption on a massive scale by the police, civil servants, custom officer and politician. Police recently kidnapped a South Korean, killed him in the police Station and then demanded over $120,000 from his family. Recently, Duterte son was caught with kilos of drugs, what happened? The chief of police was sacked for daring to arrest his son. Custom Offeucer fleeced both tourists and own citizen. They planted forbidden article in theit bag. Then they threatened to jail them unless they pay bribe. The government has been sacking and jailing opposition who are against him. Now they are introducing unlimited term for the current President with the complicit agreement of most Philippinos who has no idea what is ahead of them. Duterte is foul mouth filthy man. Very uncouth. As to police killing drug sellers. This I got to say, police are so corrupted you cannot trust them. First they might be protecting the drug lord who are paying them lot of money for protection. The police will then kill those drug lord people who are not paying them. Just to remind you rich country people don’t go for hard drug. Usually marijuana or cocaine. Only poor people in rich country go for heroine and methamphetamine. The life destroying drugs. So get your facts right..
Philippines has three CO-EQUAL branches of government INDEPENDENT of eaxh other
1. Executive branch headed by President Duterte.
2. Legislative – headed by Senate President on the upper house and Speaker of the House heads the lower house
3. JUdiciary – headed by chief justice or the first among equals.
To say that "Duterte moves to neutralize his judiciiary is A GRAVE ERROR and gross misrepresentation.
As provided for by PH CONSTITUTION a Justice by the Judiciary may be impeached by Congress. Due process is TAKING ITS COURSE.
Thats whats happening,and HAS PRECEDENCE.
In fact NOY NOY AQUINO IMPEACHED CHIEF JUSTICE Corona last 2012.
Asia Times this article is misleading.
The current impeachment process allowed under PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION WAS INITIATED by Congress (NOT BY DUTERTE), an independent body, has had PRECEDENCE.
In fact, the Liberals which de Lima belongs IMPEACHED Philippines Chief Justice Corona of the Judiciary last 2012.
Truth be told.
Dominic Ong
What thrash are you talking? Apparent that you are fed by YELLOW LIBERAL gibberish.
Case in point.
"Duterte’s son caught with kilos 9f drugs…"
CAN YOU SUBSTANTIATEA THIS ALLEGATION?
Apparent that you Wont and CANT so lift yourself a rock and crawl under.
Kevin-Maricko McCoy
Fact, not f8ction
Clearly US has erased from your textbooks the horrors it did to Philippines. Mark TWAIN stood witness back in 1898 when US in rhe guise of helping Ph from the 400 years of Spanish slavery, MURDERED Filipinos and STOLE their land and riches. Filipinos fought Americas wars when as a colony, was attacked By Japs 1942. ROOSEVELT urged and promised Filipinos to fight the Japs and gave his word to replace EVERY LOST CARABAO and Chicken. Guess what, after the war US abandoned PHILIPPINES by granting its "FREEDOM" (terrible) really to abscond on Ph RECONSTRUCTION costs.
Marshall Aid was channeled to Reconstruct Europe and Japan, NEVer PH. US ONLY WANTED TO SUCK PH DRy
So you see Kevin, US treachery and bloodied HANDS of FILIPINOS deserve COMPENSATION, RETRIBUTION and PUNISHMENT.
There will be a day of reckoning.
Sure Arden , fool yourselves but not the world. Venezuela is exactly the same " so called democracy "