Committee created to study decentralization needs
By EVANGELINE DE VERA
MALAYA
MALAYA
COLLEAGUES of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno have officially overturned a supposed en banc resolution, which created a new judicial office in the Visayas, for having been promulgated without the consent of the en banc.
Sereno earlier came under fire from fellow justices for coming out with Administrative Order No. 175 creating the new Judiciary Decentralized Office (JDO) and in reopening the Regional Court Administration Office (RCAO) in Cebu City last November, a move seen by her colleagues as a violation of her constitutional mandate.
In a three-page resolution, the high court ordered the creation instead of a needs assessment committee to determine the need to decentralize the functions of the SC in support of its power of administrative supervision over lower courts.
“This resolution supersedes all prior resolutions, administrative orders and issuances on the covered matter and shall take effect upon its promulgation,” the SC stated in its January 22, 2013 resolution, signed by Sereno and the 14 other justices.
The committee will be chaired by Associate Justice Jose Portugal-Perez. Its members are Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez; Raul Villanueva and Jenny Lind Delorino, deputy court administrators; Thelma Bahia, assistant court administrator; Lilian Barribal-Co, chief of the Financial Management Office; Caridad Pabello, chief of the Office of Administrative Services; Regina Adoracion Ignacio, chief of the Halls of Justice; and Judge Geraldine Faith Econg, Judicial Reform Program administrator.
The committee is given two months within which to submit its report and recommendations to the Court en banc.
Last December, Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro submitted a three-page letter-memorandum to the Court en banc seeking the recall of Sereno’s AO-175 creating the new JDO and reopening the RCAO in Cebu.
According to De Castro, there were no actual deliberations on the creation of the JDO as well as the RCAO, thus, Sereno’s issuance of the “fake en banc resolution” not only deprived her colleagues of the right “to exercise their constitutional duty to exercise administrative supervision over the judiciary, but also infringed on the statutory duty of the Office of the Court Administrator.”
“In fact, at the end of the deliberation, after hearing the vehement objections of the justices to her AO, if I may quote the Chief Justice, she said: ‘I will amend my administrative order’,” said De Castro.
Under the SC rules, the chief justice may issue an administrative order but subject to the approval of the rest of the members of the SC.
De Castro said the consensus of the justices was to “oppose the reopening of RCAO-7 when the said administrative matter was taken up on Nov. 27, 2012.”
The justices were against the reopening of RCAO-7 because there is yet no pilot testing or study on the scope of powers of the OCA, which will be transferred to RCAO.
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