Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Last week, speaking at her first flag ceremony at the Supreme Court as the new leader
of the judiciary, Chief Justice Teresita de Castro warned both critics and the two other
branches of government to leave the Court alone.
“The other members of the coequal and independent branches of the government should
understand that based on our constitutional order, the decisions reached by the justices
of the Supreme Court whether unanimously or by majority vote, must be respected,”
she said. “We should be left alone to decide the fate of this institution without
interference,” adding: “So we demand respect from the other members of the coequal
and independent branches of the government.”
Could she have been referring to the obvious attempts by the President of the
Philippines and the previous Speaker of the House of Representatives to intimidate the
Court and its previous chief justice, Maria Lourdes Sereno?
It does not look like Speaker Gloria Arroyo will demand that De Castro pay a courtesy
call on her, in the same way that
Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez tried to get Sereno to pay a courtesy call on him.
It also looks like De Castro and President Duterte share the same views; it does not
seem likely that De Castro will receive a public challenge from the President, and a dare
to impose martial law, in the same way that her predecessor did.
With her at the helm, even if only for less than two months, and with a majority of
justices consistently voting in favor of the President’s legal positions, it does not look
like a major official of either political branch will attempt again to browbeat the Court
in public.
It may be that this appeal, this demand for respect, is an attempt by the new chief justice
to put some distance between her and the sordid events of the last several months.
“I would like to say,” she also said, “that people outside would like to judge us from
what they see from afar. But it is us the justices and the employees and officials of the
Court who know what is happening inside the Supreme Court. And we should be left
alone to decide for ourselves.”
There is no question that the members of the Court must reach decisions by themselves.
Any attempt by any official of the executive or legislative branches of government, or
indeed of any outside party, to influence the decision-making of the Court outside of the
legal processes is illegal and unethical.
The Court, of course, can never be left completely alone; the constitutional system of
checks and balances assures that, with the executive wielding appointing power over its
members, and the legislative branch allocating its budget, subject to the fiscal autonomy
guarantee given to the judiciary by the Constitution.
The Court must decide according to “facts and the law,” that is true. But both the facts
and the law must reflect reality. It is eminently the role of the public to impress this
reality on the decision-making of the Court.
The justices can facilitate this process by observing the principle of transparency as
much as possible; or they can ignore it altogether.