THE LEGAL FRONT
The Court’s life has its own ups and downs as circumstances of time, clime and leadership take place. At better times, the Court may bask in stability and hum with productivity. At less benign times, it may live in uncertainty and disquiet. I have seen good and bad times in the Court in these last 15 years, many times at close quarters.
I joined the Court at a time of relative peace and tranquility. The Court then moved at a reasonably unhurried pace, relatively free from external pressures while resolving actionable disputes before it. Members calmly interacted with one another and thoughtfully deliberated as a body, however weighty the legal problem seemed to be.
These benign times, however, were perhaps too good to last in an institution as human as its members and, by extension, as the Court itself. For one, the Court is part of a government and a society whose democratic persuasions unavoidably subject it and its members to the push and pull of politics, both internally and externally.
As national elections creeped up in 2010, the peaceful atmosphere that I initially experienced, started to unravel; moves and developments took on a political hue. A decidedly downward trajectory came soon after the elections when the newly-elected President refused to take his oath of office before the then sitting Chief Justice as established tradition dictated. It was, it seemed to some, no less than a gauntlet thrown – an open declaration of animosity against the Court as a body, simply because the Court allowed the outgoing President to appoint the then sitting Chief Justice.
Soon enough, the move to oust the Chief Justice was out in the open. An impeachment complaint was filed with the House of Representatives and was quickly approved, mostly by the President’s allies. From there, the impeachment moved at a torrid pace before the Senate sitting as an Impeachment Court.
With the Senate President presiding, the trial opened on Dec. 14, 2011. The prosecution team was composed of members of the House of Representatives, assisted by private counsels. The defense likewise had a complete line-up of well-known lawyers, headed by a former Justice of the Supreme Court, no less.
Ultimately, the Senate impeached the Chief Justice in late May 2012, soon after the Senate’s easter recess, and laid bare before all the political atmosphere and creeping unease, hidden and denied till then, but perceptible to keen observers even prior to outgoing Chief Justice’s retirement in May 2010. The atmosphere further became charged as the new President appointed a very junior sitting Justice to replace the impeached Chief Justice.
In no time, an impeachment complaint was also brought against the newly appointed Chief Justice. Proceedings at the House of Representatives, however, ground to a halt when the Solicitor General, in a separate move, filed a Quo Warranto petition against the new Chief Justice. This was a relatively novel move, in effect, the exploration of another means to remove a Chief Justice, other than through the impeachment that the Constitution expressly provides. The Solicitor General posited that the new Chief Justice was not validly appointed to her position as she was not in fact qualified due to her failure to file her SALNs while she was a law professor at a public university.
Even before this point, conditions within the Court itself were already and steadily becoming explosive; disquiet was resonating everywhere; even the usual civility and personal respect the members owed one another began to deteriorate. The worst came when the Chief Justice was perceived to be manipulating events to thwart the nomination and appointment of a qualified applicant - a well-known public official - supposedly due to old personal differences. Thus, the Court suffered, with adverse effects no doubt in the performance of its adjudicative task.
Providentially perhaps, another national election intervened, ushering in a new President; temporarily halting the atmosphere of disquiet that had enveloped the Court; and offering the members the opportunity to effect changes for the better. Further change came when Court, still a divided one, finally ruled on the pending Quo Warranto petition and ousted the then sitting Chief Justice – the second in a row forcibly removed from office. These developments, taken together, opened the way for changes within the Court that, by this time, everyone hoped would take place. (Read Part II tomorrow.)
(The author was a former Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court and of the Court of Appeals. In the Executive Branch, he served as undersecretary and later, secretary, of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). For a time, he was Foreign Affairs undersecretary; chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy (Philja), and a partner at the Siguion Reyna, Montecillo & Ongsiako Law Offices. He taught law at the Ateneo de Manila University, the University of Asia and the Pacific, and was dean of the San Sebastian College of Law. He still teaches law at the San Pablo Colleges in San Pablo City where he currently resides. [email protected])