THE CHIEF JUSTICE MUST HAVE BEEN A JUSTICE FIRST

This year's choice of the new Chief Justice will go down in this country's history as the most beset by hassles and apparent, though debatable, inconsistencies.  Let me analyze the relevant situations one by one.

First off, the Constitution provides that three members of the of the Judicial and Bar Council must be ex-officio in their respective capacities,  being members of the Judicial (the Chief Justice), Legislative (the representative of Congress) and Executive (the DOJ Secretary) branches of government.  With former Chief Justice Corona out, it was but appropriate that the most senior member of the SC, Justice Antonio Carpio, must chair the JBC.  But Carpio inhibited, being himself a nominee for CJ, so the next senior Justice after him temporarily assumes the post of JBC Chair.  Then DOJ De Lima, another CJ nominee, also inhibited from membership in the JBC, and was replaced by Michael Musngi, a Palace undersecretary  It is needless to say that the purpose behind the ex-officio membership in the JBC was to ensure an equal participation of the Judicial, the Legislative and the Executive branches of government.  But then that equal participation was suddenly distorted when the Supreme Court allowed the simultaneous participation of Cong. Tupas, representing Congress, and Sen Chiz Escudero, representing the Senate -- in clear violation of the Constitutional provision for only one representative from the Legislature.  That there are now two lawmakers in the JBC could not have been debatable had the Supreme Court provided that each of the two should only be entitled to one-half vote.  And worse, even as the Supreme Court stood by its original position that there should indeed be only one representative from Congress, it said that allowing for two was only for this particular case, and that in the future only one representation from Congress will be allowed.  What an unthinkable Solomonic decision!  

De Lima's Dilemma.  DOJ Sec. Leila de Lima may really have a valid axe to grind for having been, in her opinion, singled out in the JBC's CJ-nominee disqualification process.  Truth is, it was not only De Lima who has a pending administrative case, there were three of them, one of whom being SolGen Jardeleza.  I mean, those cases have not been filed with the JBC, but in other judicial bodies, i.e. the Supreme Court and the IBP.  Therefore, it is only the SC and the IBP that has the sole discretion to evaluate or determine the merits of the cases against these three nominees, definitely not the JBC.  In the interest of optimum fairness, then, methinks the JBC could have simply disqualified the three rather than, indeed, singling out De Lima. This is to me one other unthinkable Solomonic decision, this time by the JBC that is downright unnecessary.

As things are, De Lima says the JBC rules are favorable to insiders in the Judiciary, meaning Justices, and unfavorable to outsiders.  Maybe right.  But in my opinion, not only tradition but practical wisdom indeed dictates that the next Chief Justice must always come from among the incumbent Justices.  There was only one occasion when that tradition was broken: when Cong. Jose Yulo became CJ, but that was an exceptionally different matter, being solely at the behest of the Japanese government in the Philippines then.. Methinks practical wisdom dictates that a Chief Justice must be a Justice first.

That said, there is reason to believe Pres. Aquino's final choice would be either Justice Carptio or Justice Serreno.  Gor, practicality again suggests that the President choose a sitting Justice than an outsider.  With that, he would also be be choosing a new Justice -- of course this time from the outside -- to replace either Serreno or Carpio and thus increase his nominees in the high court.  Meanwhile, there is now an aching need to cure the highly demoralized other Justices following what happened to Corona.  Between Serreno and Carpio, I think Carpio is in a better position to do that.  As a matter of fact, that demoralization inside the Supreme Court will all the more worsen with Serreno, the least senior of the Justices, suddenly elevated to the highest tribunal's helm.  For one thing, one of the incumbent Justices could then never expect to be CJ in his lifetime because at 52 Serreno will be be serving as CJ until 2030, when, alas, all the existing Justices have all either been dead or had retired.   At any rate, everything of course depends upon the President's unquestionable prerogative in this regard. .  And so, as I often say at the end of my blog, ABANGAN!