SolGen joins calls for inhibition of 2 CA justices in Ampatuan case

Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz on Wednesday joined families of the Maguindanao massacre victims in calling for the inhibition of two Court of Appeals justices handling a petition seeking to clear suspect Zaldy Ampatuan from murder charges. In a seven-page manifestation before the CA Tenth Division, Cadiz said he was also under the impression that the two justices — Danton Q. Beuser and Marlene Gonzales-Sison — have manifested partiality in the motion for reinvestigation filed by Ampatuan with the appellate court regarding the 57 counts of murder filed against him. “As argued by the private respondents, the Honorable Associate Justice Danton Q. Beuser and Marlene Gonzales-Sison, based on their previous actions, no longer appear to be impartial. They no longer have the confidence of the respondents," said Cadiz. The Solicitor General serves as the legal counsel of the government, its agencies, instrumentalities, and government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) in litigation or any matter requiring lawyers. The CA has already asked two individuals — Monette Salaysay and Rowena Paraan — five days to explain why they should not be held in contempt for publicly criticizing Beuser and Gonzales-Sison. Salaysay is the widow of Mindanao Gazette publisher and editor Napoleon Salaysay, one of the 57 people killed in the Nov. 2009 massacre, while Paraan is the director of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP). The CA said Salaysay and Paraan abused their freedom of expression because the petition of Ampatuan, a suspended governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was still pending. The victims’ relatives, represented by lawyer Harry Roque, formally sought last Feb. 17 Buesser and Gonzales-Sison’s inhibition, noting that the two did not inhibit from Ampatuan’s petition although they did so on the petition of his father Andal Ampatuan Sr., his co-accused in the massacre case. The elder Ampatuan was also seeking the dismissal of the case against him. Cadiz cited as basis for their petition sections of the New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary on “Integrity" (Canon 2) and “Impartiality" (Canon 3). “A judge should not handle a case in which he might be perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be susceptible to bias and partiality," Cadiz said. “At the very sign of lack of faith and trust to his actions, whether well-grounded or not, the judge has no other alternative but to inhibit himself from the case." He said “proper administration of justice" required “cold neutrality of an impartial judge." The best recourse for the two justices, according to Cadiz, was for them to “disqualify" themselves to prevent being “misunderstood" and preserve their reputation for “probity and objectivity." Last March, relatives of the slain journalists picketed the Court of Appeals building in Manila to protest what they alleged to be attempts by the Ampatuan clan to bribe the CA justices handling the petition. Ampatuan’s legal counsel, Howard Calleja, had branded the bribery accusation as speculative and baseless. - KBK, GMA News