On the Chief Justice Issue: Beyond
The Legal Debates And Niceties, It Is Ultimately GMA’s Sinister
Designs to have Her Court That Must Be Exposed
The
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) view the running debate on the
legality and propriety of appointing the next Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court by the lameduck outgoing President Gloria Arroyo as going beyond the
legal realm.
There
is an abundance of legal bases that would easily have stopped President
Arroyo’s band Representative Matias Defensor Jr. and Department of Justice
Secretary Agnes Devanedera, joined in by Presidential Legal Counsel Raul
Gonzales and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile from even stoking the issue
to advance their principal’s interests in naming and choosing the next Chief
Justice. The Judicial and Bar Council is thus being politicized and painted
into a corner by these orchestrated statements and moves that have the
blessings of the Palace to prematurely submit a list of nominees.
Much
has already been said about these legal bases to which we at NUPL fully agree
with: the constitutional prohibition on appointments including the position of
the Chief Justice two months immediately before the next presidential elections
and up to the end of the President’s term (Article VII, Section 15), the well-settled
jurisprudence that sustains this ban (In
Re Appointments of Hon. Valenzuela and Hon. Vallarta, A.M. No. 98-5-01-SC
November 9, 1998), and Section 12 of the Judiciary Act of 1948 (R.A. 296)
that has survived the test of time and tradition that the most senior justice
shall act as Chief Justice all of
which militate against the naming and choosing of the next Chief Justice by the
very person who does not have the moral authority to do so: Mrs. Arroyo.
The
real issue is not about the vacancy
in the Chief Justice post that shall be created by the retirement of Chief
Justice Puno because it poses no
problem in the Court’s performance of its constitutional duties. The real issue
is the rush of JBC members
Secretary Devanadera and Rep. Defensor for the JBC to immediately convene and
deliberate on the list of nominees for the Chief Justice post in order for
President Arroyo to make the appointment before her term of office ends. Corollary
to this is the apparent acquiescence of Malaca๑ang to this move as it has never
repudiated such plan to date nor issued any statement that the President won’t
appoint the next Chief Justice.
All
these things are clearly suspect and full of political underpinnings. Why does
President Arroyo appear to be so hot in appointing the next Chief Justice?
Thus far
beyond all the legal debates and niceties each lawyer can take either side
depending on their legal analysis and what others say as partisan proclivities
are the higher questions or issues of principle. Is President Arroyo using this crucial
situation regarding the impending vacancy on the post of Chief Justice to
perpetuate herself in power, coming as it does on other previous telling
indications that she is? Is President
Arroyo manipulating this issue due to her well-founded fear of being held
accountable by the people when she is scheduled to step down from the
Presidency for credible and lingering charges of unbridled graft and
corruption, rampant human rights violations, and midnight contracts major
issues that may ultimately have to come before and be resolved by the Supreme
Court? It is very clear that the move for the JBC to immediately select the
nominees is for President Arroyo to have a leverage and a bargaining power in
the Court after her terms ends. If she makes the appointment of the next Chief
Justice, all members of the Court
will have been her appointees. And that is a huge leverage and bargaining power
for political maneuvers and power play.
We at
NUPL, as progressive lawyers that go beyond academic legal debates and relate
these with the political, social and economic context and conditions of our
society, view all these moves and statements by President Arroyo’s minions as
ominous and betray her own sinister designs to perpetuate herself in power,
cloak herself with immunity and dangle impunity, debase the post of the Chief
Justice and of the Supreme Court itself. The teaching of history and experience
is that the Chief Justice is key and crucial in the positions and opinions of
the Court notwithstanding the professional origins and political orientation of
some or all of its other members. The Court, especially the Chief Justice, must
not be tainted with any suspicion of
partiality or bias. And it would be unfair for the Chief Justice appointed to
be placed in such a situation. A Damocles’sword is thus left hanging over the
heads of whoever will be nominated or wish to be nominated.
These
points must put into context this raging legal debate especially in view of the
distinct scenarios of no elections, failure of elections or no proclamations of
the highest elective posts up for grabs in May 2010. The NUPL believes that the
outgoing President is quivering in her knees and is so desperate that naming
and appointing a new Chief Justice that she expects rightly or wrongly to
steer the Court to take her side and rescue is an offer she can not simply
refuse. #
29 January 2010
Reference: Atty. Edre Olalia - 09151804632
Acting Secretary - General
