Retired chief magistrate Hilario Davide Jr. was reported in the Inquirer to have opined that the eight justices of the Supreme Court who voted to oust Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno through the quo warranto petition may be “impeached for culpable violation of the Constitution,” (“Davide: 8 anti-Sereno justices may be impeached,” 5/18/18).
In that same item, he also disclosed “another possible ground for bringing impeachment complaint against the eight justices: not deciding cases assigned to them within the period prescribed by the Constitution.”
With due respect, we think that Davide’s opinion may just be another voice in the wilderness.
Just as all justices of the Supreme Court have been continually violating the constitutional prescription for deciding cases assigned to them within two years only, the charge that they have also violated the constitutional proscription against the removal of an impeachable official by means other than through Congress is likely to go nowhere.
The simple fact of the matter is that majority of unelected members of the Supreme Court are practically free to do whatever pleases them. Being exclusively vested with the power to interpret the law or the Constitution any way they want with finality, the law or the Constitution is only what they say it says!
If the framers of the Constitution thought those appointed to the high court would have the decency to respect what is plainly written there, they have another think coming. There is simply no telling how big their heads could grow!
So, technically, what “culpable violation of the Constitution” are we talking about? It’s a catch-22 “abomination”!
DINO M. CAPISTRANO