Florentino Floro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Florentino V. Floro, Jr.
Judge Florentino V. Floro, Jr.
Born	November 5, 1953 (1953-11-05) (age 54) Manila
Nationality	Filipino
Known for	Psychic judge

Florentino V. Floro, Jr (born November 5, 1953 in Manila) is a Filipino judge who achieved notoriety after being suspended from the Philippine judiciary in 2006 due to mental illness. Floro made several statements that he was psychic and claimed to frequently communicate with invisible dwarves.

1 Judicial career
2 Suspension
3 Appeal
4 References

[edit] Judicial career

Floro graduated with second honors from the Ateneo de Manila University law school and placed 12th in the 1983 bar examinations with a grade of 87.55 percent. Floro was appointed to the bench in 1998, and served as a judge of the Regional Trial Court in Malabon City. His appointment came after two failed applications, both of which were rejected after he failed a mandatory psychological examination.^[1] Floro's behavior as a judge was considered unorthodox. He claimed that he was "the number five psychic in the country", and that he was an "angel of death" able to cause injury or death to people who appeared before him in court. On Fridays, he changed the color of his robes from blue to black "to recharge his psychic powers". He explained that he took legal advice from three invisible dwarves named Luis, Armand and Angel.^[1]

[edit] Suspension

Fewer than eight months after his appointment, the court began proceedings to remove Floro from his position. Floro successfully delayed the procedure for three years before a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines suspended him from the judiciary. As part of the investigation, Floro confessed he had conducted healing sessions in his chambers during breaks. The court separated him from judicial service with payment of three years backwages and a fine of 40,000 pesos. The court said that, while it was not within its area of responsibility to declare Floro insane, it agreed with the results of psychological testing which had identified Floro as suffering from psychosis.^[1]^[2]

[edit] Appeal

Floro appealed the court's ruling against him, though the court upheld his suspension, saying that permitting him to continue as a judge would be harmful to public trust in the judiciary as a guardian of the law, as judges were expected to resolve cases before them with judicial detachment. It further stressed that its decision had nothing to do with Floro's belief in dwarves or the validity of such a belief. It finally ruled that Floro's claimed dalliance with 'dwendes' would eventually make the judiciary an object of ridicule.^[3]^[4]^[5]

On July 12, 2007, the Philippines Supreme Court Justices ordered Floro to stop requesting a review of his case, denying and expunging the petitions and letters filed by Floro with a warning that he can be held liable for indirect contempt should he persist in disregarding lawful orders of the Court.^[6]^[7]

In late July, Floro filed a disbarment complaint with charges of gross misconduct, ignorance of the law, manifest undue interest, questionable temporary restraining orders and violations of the ethical standards and code of conduct of the Philippines Supreme Court Justices.^[8] Floro named one justice specifically as part of a 'dirty dozen', twelve judges currently under investigation for corruption by the court's Ombudsman.^[9]