EDITORIAL - Fast-track ouster

With impressive speed, the Supreme Court yesterday gifted the Office of the Solicitor General with unprecedented power. All that the OSG has to do now is challenge the qualifications of the chief justice or any other impeachable official, through a quo warranto petition, and a compliant SC majority may hand over the official’s head on a silver platter.

That head could one day belong to one of the eight who voted yesterday to oust Maria Lourdes Sereno as chief justice. Under the Constitution, every member of the SC can be removed only by impeachment. But the SC, in its historic vote yesterday, went along with the argument of the government’s chief lawyer, and a precedent has been set. Henceforth, SC members must brace for a quo warranto petition for ouster in case their vote on a case that reaches the high tribunal displeases the solicitor general or his principal client.

The same goes for the other officials who are impeachable under the Constitution: the ombudsman and the heads of the Commission on Elections, Commission on Audit and Civil Service Commission. The country’s two highest officials may also be removed by impeachment. With yesterday’s new jurisprudence, can the president and vice president also be ousted through the fast-track mode of a quo warranto petition? Vice President Leni Robredo is worried that this may be the case.

Senators, whose chamber is the only office tasked under the Constitution to conduct an impeachment trial, mostly objected to the SC ruling. But the House of Representatives, which sat on Sereno’s impeachment while the SC deliberated with lightning speed on the quo warranto petition, seems happy to abdicate its constitutional power of impeachment.

The close SC vote at least has raised a glimmer of hope among those against the quo warranto petition that someone might have a change of heart and rule differently when deliberating on the motion for reconsideration that Sereno is expected to file. Two votes would be decisive enough in a divided tribunal, although just one vote could mean a tie and maintenance of the status quo in the SC.

Sereno has 15 working days to appeal her removal. Within that period, SC members can still consider the impact of their decision on the independence of their own court and the judiciary, and on the state of the rule of law in this country.