Senator Leila De Lima asked one of the three judges handling her drug case to restrain herself because of “manifest partiality, bias and hostility.”
In a 13-page motion, De Lima asked Judge Lorna
Navarro Domingo, acting President of Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 206 to stop from
further hearing and conducting the trial on the case against her.
De Lima, through her counsel, said Navarro prematurely ruled
against her motion to disqualify 13 previously-convicted prosecution witnesses on the ground that a prior conviction prevents witnesses from being admitted as state witnesses, under the Republic Act No. 6981 or the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act.
The law requires that before a witness can be admitted as a state witness, he/she must not have been convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude.
The law requires that before a witness can be admitted as a state witness, he/she must not have been convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude.
Based
on cases decided by the Supreme Court, moral turpitude refers to “an act of
baseness, vileness or depravity” that “gravely violates moral sentiment or
accepted moral standards of the community…” This includes cases such as murder,
kidnapping, robbery and selling of illegal drugs, for which crimes the
prosecution witnesses were convicted.
The witnesses against the senator are mostly convicted drug traffickers, robbers, and carnappers.
The witnesses against the senator are mostly convicted drug traffickers, robbers, and carnappers.
According
to her camp, De Lima was given until September 24, 2018 to file her reply but
even before she could file her pleading, the judge came out with a ruling on
that same day denying the motion.
The court also scheduled that one of the witnesses, a convicted criminal, Engelberto Durano, to take the witness stand.
The court also scheduled that one of the witnesses, a convicted criminal, Engelberto Durano, to take the witness stand.
“This means that the Honorable Judge already had a pre-determined
resolution of the Motion even before Accused filed her Reply. This clearly
constitutes an act of prejudgment, reflecting the Honorable Judge’s manifest
bias, partiality, and hostility against the Accused,” read the motion.
The court on Tuesday rescheduled the trial. Lawyer Filibon
Tacardon said the court opted not to conduct a hearing until the motion to
inhibit is resolved.
Tinanggap naman ni Judge na hindi na muna siya magbibisita o hindi muna niya didinggin yung kaso hanggang hindi nare-resolve itong motion for inhibition,” Tacardon told reporters.
No comments:
Post a Comment