CA justice in Binay’s suspension case anew inhibits for ‘impartiality’

Court of Appeals (Wikipedia photo)

MANILA – Associate Justice Celia Librea-Leagogo, who was supposedly among the magistrates selected to handle Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay’s second preventive suspension case, inhibited for ‘impartiality’ in the Court of Appeals’ (CA) ruling in the said case.

In her letter to the CA, Leagogo mentioned that one of her husband Atty. Joey Leagogo’s law partners was a cousin of Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II.

Roxas, who was accused for the demolition job against Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay, was one of the respondents in Mayor Binay’s appeal.

“It was recently brought to my attention that the Secretary of respondent Department of the Interior and Local Government, who was directed to implement the Ombudsman’s joint order in the above-captioned case, is the first cousin of one of the co-partners of my husband in their law firm,” Leagogo said in her letter.

“I am voluntarily inhibiting myself from participating in this case, in the interest of impartiality in the proper discharge of my judicial office,” she added.

Associate Justice Priscilla Baltazar Padilla has then replaced Leagogo in the case.