CA allows De Lima to resolve review plea of Gerry Ortega kin The Court of Appeals has allowed Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to resolve the petition filed by the family of slain environmentalist Gerry Ortega against the junking of complaint against the suspects, which include former Palawan governor Joel Reyes. In a 19-page decision, the CAs Special First Division denied Reyes plea seeking to bar the Office of the Secretary of Justice (OSJ) from conducting further proceedings related to the 2011 killing. By MARK MERUEÑAS, GMA News October 20, 2014 Reyes had earlier filed a petition with the Department of Justice (DOJ) asking De Lima to inhibit from resolving the petition for review following her statement alleging that the suspects employed foul tactics and illicit means to get a favorable decision from the CA. In junking Reyes petition, the CA ruled that it was still premature to rule on the matter considering that De Lima has yet to rule on his motion for inhibition pending before the DOJ. Saying Reyes failed to cite valid grounds to justify De Limas inhibition, the CA said her public statements were not tantamount to a denial of his pending motion for inhibition. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the SOJ had been less than impartial because of her public statements in connection with the Ortega murder case, this does not necessarily make the entire OSJ or the DOJ also partial, the CA ruled. The SOJ is not the DOJ. Should the SOJ voluntarily inhibit from the case, the petition for review of Patria Gloria Ortega would still be resolved by the assigned undersecretary pursuant to Department Circular No. 66, it added. The CA said it recognized the power of the SOJ to review, revise, reverse, or modify the resolutions of her prosecutors who conducted preliminary investigations. For the Court to curtail the exercise by the SOJ of her primary jurisdiction to review and supervise preliminary investigations, the petitioner will have to plead much more and not simply rely on his fears, apprehensions and suppositions, the CA said. The ruling was penned by Associate Justice Apolinario Bruselas Jr. Concurring with it were Associate Justices Amny Lazaro-Javier and Samuel Gaerlan. De Lima had earlier said she was merely exercising her right to free expression in airing her frustration after the CA, in March 2013, clearing Reyes of murder charges in the killing of Ortega due to the supposed procedural lapses on the part of the DOJ in investigating the case. De Lima had hinted that she knew about something that happened that led to the favorable decision on Reyes. She, however, refused to elaborate, saying she has no solid proof to back her claim. The decision clearing Reyes, who is still in hiding and believed to be outside the country, came some four months after another CA division junked similar charges against the former governors co-accused and brother, Mayor Mario Reyes of Coron town. A DOJ panel headed by State Prosecutor Edwin Dayog had already cleared Reyes and his brother Mario and four other suspects for insufficiency of evidence in a June 8, 2011 resolution. The Ortega camp filed a petition for review. Instead of resolving the review plea, De Lima on September 7, 2012 formed a new panel and re-opened the case through Department Order 710, which modified the first panels resolution and implicated the Reyes brothers in the killing. Disorder In a March 2013 ruling that reinstated the findings of the first DOJ panel, the CA said De Limas creation of the second panel, as well as its findings that ran contrary to those of the first panel, caused disorder in what should have been an orderly procdure. Since at this precise moment this finding by the first panel of prosecutors has not yet been reversed, affirmed or modified by the Public Respondent Secretary of Justice, such finding is still valid. For all legal intents and purposes therefore, petitioner should not have been indicted for the crime of murder, the CA division had said. The CA said instead of forming a second panel of investigators, De Lima should have resolved the Ortega camps petition for review and reviewed the case herself, something which she did not do in violation of the rules of procedure. In her defense, De Lima insisted that she was authorized to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a re-investigation, and that the second panel was formed even before any of the parties filed a petition for review. She said the second panel also has “de facto authority” to conduct investigation, which makes its results valid even if DO 710 is deemed null and void. However, the CA said there was no need to create a second panel at the time since neither party was deprived of their constitutional rights during the preliminary investigation by the first panel. The Reyes brothers, who have repeatedly denied the accusation and said their political opponents were behind the charges, went into hiding when the second panel came out with its findings. The victim, who was also a broadcaster, was a known staunch critic of the Reyeses and was known to make hard-hitting commentaries against the local government at that time. —KBK, GMA News
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 16:47:54 +0000
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