While justice delayed is justice denied, a judicial appointment made with undue dispatch could be an error in disguise.

The precipitate appointment of Justice Teresita De Castro as the new chief justice deprived the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) the opportunity to reconsider her inclusion in the shortlist of nominees for the vacant position of chief magistrate together with Justices Diosdado Peralta and Lucas Bersamin, all of whom are facing impeachment complaints for culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust in the House of Representatives.

Aside from patently violating the Constitution by ruling that a quo warrantopetition can be a medium for ousting an impeachable officer, like the chief justice, in lieu of the constitutionally mandated process of impeachment, De Castro also betrayed public trust when she refused to inhibit herself from the adjudication of the quo warrantopetition despite her admitted continuing ill will and bias against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Following are her detrimental testimonies before the House Committee on Justice which was then conducting hearings on the impeachment compliant against Sereno:

1. She resented to no small measure the appointment of Sereno as chief justice over herself considering that Sereno was just “two years as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court”;

2. She accused Sereno of being “disqualified” for the position of chief justice because she failed to submit the requisite number of her SALNs, the very principal issue in the quo warranto petition;

3. She accused Sereno of “deceiving” the Judicial and Bar Council in securing her nomination for the position of chief justice;

4. She decried to no end Sereno’s failure to follow the “standard procedures” of the Supreme Court and her disdain of and disrespect for the “collegial” composition of the High Court;

5. She also said that Sereno considered as “crazy” whoever disagreed with her; and

6. She went to the extent of suggesting that Sereno be examined by a psychiatrist for insisting on getting what she wanted: “Ako po ang tingin ko kay Chief Justice Sereno, tingin niya siya lang ho ang tama. Ngayon, doon sa kinikilos niya, gusto niya kung ano nasa isip niya, `yun ang mangyayari. Ang dapat ho sigurong tanungin eh isang psychologist at psychiatrist bakit siya ganon.”

Indelible in the foregoing testimonies of De Castro is her persistent ill will and prejudice against Sereno which should have impelled her to recuse from participating in sustaining the petition for quo warrantowhere her impartiality and judiciousness were absent.

De Castro would get the hefty retirement benefits of a chief justice when she retires on October 8, 2018 after an inordinately brief tenure of about 42 days, which is the shortest in the history of the Supreme Court.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN