ON AUG. 25, Associate Justice Teresita J. Leonardo-De Castro was appointed Chief Justice. Five days later, the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) invited applications for her replacement.
No one asserts that the Supreme Court (SC) is in good shape. De Castro says that she will facilitate a return to collegiality. Since it is only five weeks before she steps down, the best she can do is to make a start. I hope she is successful.
Why is the SC in this condition?
The simple answer is that the Constitution has not been respected.
Some problems began with the mandatory retirement of Chief Justice Reynato Puno on May 17, 2010, his 70th birthday. His replacement, Renato Corona, was unconstitutionally appointed by President Gloria Arroyo. Unconstitutional due to Article Vll Section 15 “midnight appointments” which forbids the outgoing President to make a decision on appointments within two months of the end of her term (June 30, 2010).
CJ Corona was impeached and was removed from office as a result of 20-3 vote against him in Senate. (Senators Joker Arroyo, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. being the three who did not vote for Corona’s removal from office).
The vacancy thus created was filled by Maria Lourdes Sereno in 2012 as a result of President Aquino who selected her from candidates submitted to him by the JBC. Almost immediately there were reports of disharmony relating to some sitting judges who believed that they were more senior than Sereno.
The concept of seniority does not stand scrutiny. Nowhere is it mentioned in the Constitution. The argument against seniority is embodied by two main factors:
The first is that it engenders a culture of entitlement from those who think they are more senior than others. How is seniority defined? By age? By some vague notion of competence?
The second is that it unfairly and unconstitutionally reduces the authority of the democratically elected President to choose the candidate he thinks is most suitable.
Was Sereno treated fairly by her SC peers? Probably not, though anecdotal evidence suggests that she was not a world-class team player.
The Constitution was again violated with Sereno’s removal from office .The only constitutional route had already started with the involvement of the House of Representatives. If one third of its members voted in favor of impeachment, then Senate would have to conduct the trial. It then required at least two thirds of the Senators to vote against her in order for her to be removed from office.
I mention this because I believe that the sidelining of the Legislative Branch by the Executive Branch has created tensions which are not good for the nation’s cohesive governance. Neither the House nor the Senate has shown themselves to be particularly interested in Reynato Puno’s draft Federalist Charter.
Supreme Court appointments in the United States are specified by its Constitution to be for life.
If we had the same, rather than retiring SC judges at 70, then it is reasonable to surmise that the SC would now be a smooth-running operation under the stewardship of a 78 year old CJ Puno.
The internecine problems of the past eight years would not have happened!/PN
