How De Castro 'technically' is the first female Chief Justice

New Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro believes she is "technically" the country's first female chief magistrate.

De Castro concurred with the assessment of Ombudsman and former SC justice Samuel Martires, who called her the "first lady chief justice."

"Technically, I think he is correct," De Castro said.

Historically, the title belongs to her predecesor: Maria Lourdes Sereno, designated to the helm of the judiciary in 2012 but ousted six years later, her appointment invalidated over an alleged failure to file some mandatory asset declarations.

The May 11 decision that expelled Sereno came with a declaration that she was a "de facto" officer who never rose to the status of an impeachable official, thus making her removable through a quo warranto action.

A majority of her colleagues, including De Castro, found Sereno ineligible to hold the chief justice position and decided she was unlawfully holding and exercising the office. As a consequence, she was disqualified, ousted and excluded from the Office of the Chief Justice.

De Castro officially took over the seat vacated by Sereno on Tuesday. She has little over a month left in the High Court before she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70.

'De facto' vs 'de jure'

A source knowledgeable on the matter said De Castro is the first female "de jure" chief justice, as opposed to Sereno, a "de facto" officer.

"De jure" means "by right." The SC defines a judge de jure as one exercising his or her office as a matter of right, and was legally elected or appointed.

A "de facto"— or "in fact" — officer, on the other hand, is "one who has the reputation or appearance of the being the officer he assumes to be but who, in fact, under the law, has no right or title to the office he assumes to hold."

A de facto officer "holds by some color of right or title," unlike a usurper, who intrudes upon the office without either legal title or color of right, according to McQuillin's Law of Municipal Corporations as cited in a 1960 SC decision.

In other words, under this interpretation, De Castro is the first legally recognized  female chief justice.

However, the source said the SC en banc has yet to decide on whether or not Sereno will be removed from the roster of Philippine chief justices.

The late former chief justice Renato Corona, who was impeached and convicted, is still on this roster, the source told GMA News Online.

Sereno's decisions

Sereno's stint as chief justice amounted to six years' worth of judicial decisions, among them dissenting votes on the acquittal of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on plunder charges; the burial of strongman Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani; and the upholding of President Rodrigo Duterte's declaration of martial law over Mindanao.

Does her ouster mean the nullification of her decisions? The source cited the ponencia of Associate Justice Noel Tijam on the quo warranto petition that declared her a "de facto" chief justice.

"Thus, her decisions stand," the source said.

Abdiel Dan Fajardo, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, called the "de facto" tag a legal device in order to retain Sereno's decisions.

"They have no choice. Sereno presided over the Court for six years, wrote and voted on so many cases. They cannot be undone or declared void without wreaking havoc on finality of judgments," Fajardo told GMA News Online.

Meanwhile, Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, said the proposition was acceptable, but seemed "self-contradictory" given the invalidation of Sereno's appointment.

"But what is indubitable is that this mess cannot be cleaned up by sweeping things under the rug," he said.

However, Fajardo believes the matter of the Supreme Court's first female chief justice is not a settled issue.

"Eventually, hopefully, the system will correct it, perhaps under a Supreme Court with a different composition," he said. —BM/JST, GMA News