Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday lashed out at another UN human rights official for making critical remarks about his supposed role in the expulsion of Philippine Supreme Court chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, saying the official should “go to hell.”
Duterte dismissed the remarks of UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Diego Garcia-Sayan and told him not to meddle in domestic problems as he answered a reporter’s question before departing on a visit to South Korea.
“Tell him not to interfere with the affairs of my country. He can go to hell,” Duterte said at the late-night news conference, which was televised. “He is not a special person and I do not recognize his rapporteur title.”
Photo: AP
The unprecedented ouster of Sereno after Duterte lambasted her in public is an attack on judicial independence that could put Philippine democracy at risk, Garcia-Sayan told reporters in Manila on Thursday.
Duterte has reacted with similar public outbursts in the past against other UN rapporteurs who raised alarm and sought an independent investigation into his bloody campaign against illegal drugs, which has left thousands of mostly poor drug suspects dead.
Sereno’s ouster has generated “a climate of intimidation” in the 15-member court and at other levels of the judiciary, Garcia-Sayan said in an interview.
There is no formal UN investigation into Sereno’s removal, but as the rapporteur who looks into threats to independence of judges and lawyers worldwide, he had to speak up when problems are reported anywhere in the world, he said.
“For a rapporteur of the UN on independence of justice to keep silent when a chief justice in any country in the world, even in my country, would be dismissed in such a way is impossible, and it will be immoral to stay silent,” said Garcia-Sayan, who has served as a judge and foreign minister of Peru.
He said he sent questions to the Philippine government about the circumstances leading to the May 11 ouster of Sereno, and expressed hope that the Duterte administration would reply within 60 days and agree to a dialogue on issues that could threaten the judiciary’s independence.
Sereno, 57, was expelled by an 8-to-6 vote on a petition filed by Philippine Solicitor General Jose Calida, who accused her of failing to file asset disclosures as a state university law professor years ago, a charge she denies.
She has appealed the ruling, citing a constitutional principle that top judiciary officials can only be removed by congressional impeachment.
A majority of the 23-member Philippine Senate, including some Duterte allies, has asked the Supreme Court to review its decision, calling it a “dangerous precedent” that infringed on the Philippine Congress’ power to impeach senior officials.
Philippine presidential spokesman Harry Roque said that Garcia-Sayan was misinformed.
While Duterte has been critical of Sereno for claiming that he plotted against her, the president had no hand in her expulsion, Roque said, adding that Duterte’s dislike of Sereno “is not an attack to the judiciary or an affront to judicial independence.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing