Carpio refuses automatic nomination for Chief Justice

July 24, 2018

Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio has officially turned down his automatic nomination to the country's  top judicial post left vacant following the ouster of Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno last month.

“I am declining my automatic nomination for Chief Justice,” Carpio said Tuesday in a letter addressed to the 7-man Judicial and Bar Council.

Carpio’s decision not to seek the post of chief justice leaves four senior associate justices of the SC  -- Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, and Lucas Bersamin -- as possible contenders.

None of them four has accepted their automatic nomination.

Carpio earlier said he would not seek the post of  chief justice since he voted against the quo warranto petition against Sereno.

The JBC comes up with a shortlist of nominees for vacancies in the judiciary and the Office of the Ombudsman and recommends appointees to the Office of the President.

The 1987 Constitution requires that the chief justice position must be filled within 90 days from vacancy, which means that President Rodrigo Duterte needs to appoint a chief justice by September 16. DMS