When people call you ?Barok,? it?s hard to be taken seriously. Still, Louis ?Barok? Biraogo has made some very serious charges, against the Supreme Court and its chief justice, no less?charges that deserve to be heard and answered fully, without politics and paranoia getting in the way.

Briefly put, Biraogo, who according to court records is a private litigant in a congressional election disqualification case in Negros Oriental, is accusing the tribunal and Chief Justice Reynato Puno of failing to release a decision removing a congressman, Jocelyn Limkaichong, despite the fact that the justices had already signed a ruling to that effect. Biraogo claims that he received a leaked copy of the decision signed by 14 members of the Court (excluding Puno), which was drafted by a justice who has since retired, as evidence of his claim in a press conference early last month.

The Court responded by threatening to cite Biraogo in contempt unless he declared how he came to acquire a copy of the decision, which the tribunal said was a mere draft. The spokesman of the high court has also declared that the pressure being applied on Puno in the Limkaichong case was intended to lead to the impeachment of the chief justice ?something others have interpreted as a move to pave the way for the amendment of the Constitution.

How an election disqualification case has morphed into a Charter change scenario isn?t really clear. Both Congress (which would do the impeaching) and the Palace (which supposedly stands to benefit from it) have denied involvement in what was once a simple election protest, but which is now the political case du jour and Exhibit ?A? in the on-again, off-again cha-cha controversy.

But the elevation of the disqualification case to a national issue is just par for the course in these paranoid times. Especially these days, when it seems that every level of the judiciary is under attack and intense scrutiny, it was probably to be expected.

Still, the original case, as presented by Biraogo, demands an answer to a question that had nothing to do with changing the Constitution: Did the chief justice attempt to use his considerable influence on the members of the Court to change a decision that they had already signed, agreeing?if not with the arguments of the justice who wrote it, then ?concurring with the result,? as the high court spokesman says?that Limkaichong was an alien and thus unqualified to sit in Congress?

In addition, should the members of the Supreme Court be allowed to reverse their votes (as shown by their signatures) after the fact, upon the behest of the chief justice, since the decision they signed has not yet been promulgated and released? When is a Supreme Court decision, after all, not yet a decision?

The high court has recently said that it is still investigating the leak of the signed (but unpromulgated) ruling and the other circumstances surrounding the case. According to the spokesman of the Court, the justices are also still deliberating on the Limkaichong case?which is surprising, to say the least, given that the tribunal has already upheld the authenticity of the ?draft? ruling leaked to Biraogo.

This Barok apparently isn?t as stupid as the comic-book caveman that he got his nickname from. As it is, he?s got the entire high court in a tizzy, unable to decide either way in the case that he has brought before it.

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The claim that the justices are still considering how to decide on the election dispute is unusual, according to the unnamed source who leaked the draft ruling to Biraogo last October, because the case had already been decided as early as July, ahead of the oral arguments presented in August and months before now-retired Justice Ruben Reyes wrote his decision. More likely, according to the petitioner, Puno was displeased with the decision and made it known to the justices that only a ruling favoring the congressman would be acceptable.

In fact, one of the more bizarre twists in the Limkaichong case is a document also leaked to Biraogo together with the draft ruling written by Reyes. The simply-titled ?Reflections? written by Justice Antonio Carpio, who was one of those who ruled against Limkaichong, argued that perhaps the justices were mistaken in approving Reyes? draft and that this earlier position could be remedied.

Furthermore, according to Biraogo, it seems that Limkaichong?s supporters included the lawyer of the Office of the Solicitor General, who reversed the government?s earlier position (as declared by the Commission on Elections) that the congressman was not a natural-born Filipino. That strange position by the government?s lawyer, and the fact that both he and the lawyer for Limkaichong were law-school fraternity brothers of Puno, made the developments of the case highly irregular, according to Biraogo.

(The lawyer for the government replaced a legal team from the OSG, which had already presented its case to the high court. Thus, the court had to decide, among other things, on two petitions presented by only one side that were actually in conflict with each other. That?s another strange factoid from the case.)

As for the insistence of the Court?s spokesman that the justices are having second thoughts about their earlier decision because they merely agreed with the result, Biraogo says that neither the Constitution nor various other laws require that a ruling of the Supreme Court should have ?doctrinal value? before it may be promulgated. Either way, he says, once the justices have signed a decision, they may not change their positions as an afterthought?that would be like voters saying that they wanted to choose other candidates after they had voted.

Whichever way the high court eventually decides on the issue, it is going to be placed in a tough situation. If it reverses itself after saying that the Reyes decision was already signed, sealed and (almost) delivered, it will give credence to all of Biraogo?s accusations. If the court says that the original Reyes ?ponencia? is the right decision, it will still lay itself open to charges of pussy-footing and unduly delaying its deliberations (thus making the court vulnerable to efforts to amend or reverse its rulings), since that document had already been prepared months ago.

No wonder the spokesman of the Supreme Court has to come up with an impeachment scenario to deflect attention from the embarrassment being caused by the Biraogo petition. Barok seems to have stymied the entire court, and an appeal to the political paranoiacs among us seems the only way out of the mess right now.