Lawyers urge UN rapporteur to take actions on Duterte’s open threats to Sereno

Various lawyer groups have come in unison to ask the United Nations (UN) to take action on the recent blow of President Rodrigo Duterte against the embattled Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

It can be recalled that Sereno’s insistence that the president is behind efforts to abolish her appointment as top magistrate irked the latter. Duterte then publicly announced that Sereno is now her enemy, even expressing his desire to see Sereno’s speedy ouster from the Supreme Court.

This did not sit right with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), National Union of People’s Lawyers, Alternative Law Groups, Ateneo Human Rights Center, Free Legal Assistance Group, Manananggol Laban sa EJKs, and the International Pro Bono Alliance, the groups that urged the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego Garcia Sayan, to take actions on the issue.

“The recent tirades of the President against the Chief Justice do not sound at all foreboding. They rather expectedly punctuate the long-winded attacks on judicial independence that began almost two years ago, when the Chief Justice dared resist an apparent intrusion into judicial power,” the groups said in a statement.

(DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 04/ 18 /18)