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Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima issued an apology on Saturday afternoon, July 26 to the Supreme Court (SC) after she described its dismissal of Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment case as "one-sided".
De Lima, a former senator, admitted to releasing her scathing statement on the SC before she could read its decision on the Vice President’s petition to dismiss for violation of the one-year bar rule on impeachment complaints.
"I regret and most humbly apologize to the [SC] for characterizing the impeachment decision as ex-parte," De Lima said.
"That portion of my statement saying the House was not given an opportunity to comment on the impeachment petitions was grossly ill-advised as it was based on patently wrong information," she said.
The House of Representatives is the main responded in the impeachment case.
"Definitely, it is not my intention to falsely accuse the [SC] of not considering the side of the respondent House of Representatives. It is plainly evident in the decision, which I was able to read only after the release of my statement yesterday, that the House's comments in the two impeachment petitions were indeed considered by the court," she explained.
"There is no excuse for this mistake and I bear full responsibility for the same," underscored De Lima.
In her remarks Friday shorty after the SC decision was made public, De Lima slammed the ruling as "not only unprecedented; it is procedurally questionable".
"Paano naglabas ng pinal na desisyon kung wala pang pormal na tugon ang respondent? (How was the final decision made without a formal reply from the respondent?). Even traffic violators are given more due process than what was accorded here," the dismayed De Lima earlier said.
"The decision is basically an ex-parte decision, a very prohibited action among judges when the rules require the parties to be given the opportunity to be heard first," she claimed.
