De Lima asks Muntinlupa judge to recuse from her trial for drugs

Senator Leila de Lima has asked the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court judge hearing the drug charges against her to recuse from her case for acts that she said showed "bias," "partiality," and "prejudgment" against her.

In a motion filed on Monday, De Lima asked Judge Lorna Navarro-Domingo to recuse from further hearing drug trade conspiracy charges against her.

The opposition senator is facing criminal cases for her alleged involvement in the drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison in exchange for funds for her 2016 senatorial campaign. She denies the charges.

Her 13-page inhibition plea cited as a ground the judge's "premature" ruling that rejected her bid to disqualify convicted individuals from testifying against her, as well as the "disingenuous" justification of the denial.

Domingo had denied De Lima's bid to block 13 convicts from serving as prosecution witnesses supposedly without waiting for De Lima's reply to the prosecution's objection to her motion to disqualify.

De Lima's lawyers asked that the denial be vacated, but the judge turned them down again, saying their reply was filed out of time to begin with. The senator's camp called it a "false ground," because the court, they said, could not have known the reply would be filed five minutes after the closing of court office hours.

More, they said court personnel still received the filing. "Such is proof that the Reply was filed in due course because, otherwise, the court staff would have refused to receive the same," the motion said.

The senator also took issue with Judge Domingo's denial of her motion for reconsideration questioning the order that admitted the government's amended charges -- from illegal drug trading to conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading --  against her.

She alleged that the judge decided so "even while admitting that she was not aware" of the said appeal before a May 2018 hearing "and only knew about it because Accused's counsel had to remind her that it remained pending."

The judge also ordered the prosecution to furnish the court with a Department of Justice resolution supporting the amended charges "long after" denying the motion for reconsideration, De Lima's motion alleged.

"Hence, it is apparent that she decided the Motion for Reconsideration without actually referring to the records of the case first. She realized her mistake when she discovered that there is no DOJ resolution to support the Amended Information," the motion said.

"Yet, she never made an effort to correct her mistake of ruling on a Motion without having sufficient basis therefor," it added.

The motion also raised as a ground the judge's denial of De Lima's motion to dismiss on the same day it was filed "without checking the records, and, again, by simply relying on the self-serving assurances of the prosecution."

The inhibition plea cited as a ground an instance when the judge allegedly disallowed the defense counsel's questions the criminal record of a prosecution witness, Police Senior Superintendent Jerry Valeroso.

Finally, the motion alleged that Judge Domingo violated the senator's right to an open and public trial by supposedly ordering court staff to bar the media from observing hearings on the case against De Lima.

When taken together, the alleged acts "no longer indicate mere lapses in judgment or innocent actions that were not intended to prejudice the defense of the accused," the senator's motion said.

"Instead, the recurrence of said incidents already unravel a surreptitious design to undermine the defense of the accused from the very beginning, by prejudging incidents raised by the accused, thereby displaying a manifest bias, partiality, and even hostility to the cause of the accused," it added.

The next hearing on the case pending before Branch 206 is scheduled for November 6, De Lima's lawyer, Filibon Tacardon, told reporters Tuesday. He said the judge said she will not continue hearing the case until the motion for inhibition is resolved. —NB, GMA News